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THREE   HEROINES   OF 

NEW   ENGLAND 

ROMANCE 


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THREE  HEROINES  OF 
NEW  ENGEAND 
ROMANCE  X 


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<;i^;'HEIR^true  stories  here- 
ia  set  forth  by(^Mr8- 
Harriet  Prcscott  Spofford 
Miss  Louise  Imogen  Guiney 
and  Miss'Alice  Brown^ 

With  many  little  picturings 
duLhentic  and  fanciful  by 
Edmund  H  Gcirrctt  and  pub- 
lished by  Little  Brown  and 
Company  Boston*  1894 
^^ 


^A^ 


Copyright,  1894, 
By  Edmund  H.  Garrett. 


JEnitrersitg  ^rcss: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


Contents  j^ 


Priscilla 

Harriet  Prescott  Spofford. 


15 


Agnes  Surriage 63 

Alice  Brown. 

Martha  Hilton 109 

Louise  Imogen  Guiney. 


Notes 

Edmund  H.  Garrett. 


137 


Martha    Hilton.      "  With    her    sweeping    brocades 
and    a   cushion    towering    upon    her    powdered 

head " Fro7itispiece. 

Priscilla  at  the  spinning  wheel 14 

"  In  his  rough  cradle  by  the  sounding  sea  "  .     .     .     .  17 

Rose   Standish 21 

"  The  daring  and  spirited  girl  " 25 

"  Or  in  calmer  moments  reading  the  blessed  promises 

of  His  word  " 29 

Miles  Standish 33 

"  Up  and  doTfVTi  the  sands  I  'd  pace  " 36 

"  Her  respected  parent " 37 


lo  List  of  Drawings. 

"  There,  too,  came  Priscilla  " 41 

"  Ponds  set  like   jewels   in   the   ring   of  the  green 

woods  " 43 

"  First  happened  on  the  Mayflower  " 45 

"  The  blushing  Sabbatia  " 47 

John  Alden 49 

"  Silvers  its  wave,  its  rustling  wave" 51 

The  wedding  procession 53 

Grape-vine 56 

Woodbine 57 

The  ships  of  the  merchants 59 

"  Up-stairs  and  down-stairs  ran  the  streets  "      ...  64 

"  Houses  set  '  catty  cornered  '  " 65 

"  An  old  Marbleheader  " 67 

"  The  solid  dignity  of  the  old  Town  House  "...  69 

"  The  old  graveyard  " 71 

"  The  wild  azalea  " 74 

"  The  blackberry  clings  and  crowds  " 75 

Butterfly 75 

"  Again  he  came  riding  " 77 

"  Bravely  attired  in  small  clothes  and  wigs  "      ...  81 

"  She  learned  to  play  on  the  harpsichord "     .     .     .     .  83 

Frankland 85 

"  Tragic  battlings  of  heart  and  conscience  "  .     .     .     .  87 

"  All  the  more  did  she  turn  to  Frankland  "   .     .     .     .  89 

'  The  giant  box  and  a  few  ancient  trees  "      .     .     .     .  92 

"  At  the  banquets  " 93 

■*'  His  ancestral  home  " 95 


List  of  Drawings.  1 1 

"  The  opera  was  the  finest  on  the  continent  "...  97 

Agnes  Surriage 99 

"  They  again  visited  Lisbon  " 102 

"  Married  a  wealthy  banker  of  Chichester  ''....  104 

"  The  little  figure  with  the  swishing  bucket  "     .     .     .  108 

"  Sly  damsels  in  Puritan  caps  " no 

"  Gold  laced  dandies  at  Newport  " in 

"  Nor  need  link  herself  with  the  neighboring  yokel 

whom  Providence  had  assigned  her"      ....  113 

Where  Governor  Wentworth  was  born 114 

"  A  fishmonger  in  London  " 115 

"  He   had   the    mortification    to   see  her  prefer  one 

.Shortridge,  a  mechanic" 117 

"  His  snuff-boxes  and  his  bowls  " 118 

Governor  Benning  Wentworth 119 

Wentworth  house  at  Little  Harbor 121 

"  Her  strategic  eye  upon  master's  deciduous  charms  "  123 

"  The  great  buck  of  his  day  " 127 

"  Fiddling  at  Stoodley's  far  into  the  morning"  ...  131 

"  Wharves  now  rotting  along  the  harbor-borders  "     .  133 

Old  houses 139 

An  old  English  church 139 

Picturesque  barns 140 

The  Weston  flag-staff 141 

"  Houses  sheltered  by  great  elms  " 142 

"  Past  fertile  farms  " 142 

"  Over  picturesque  stone  bridges  " 143 

"  Here  is  a  noble  elm  " 144 


12  List  of  Drawings. 

The  Wayside  Inn,  Sudbury 145 

Great  elms  at  Hopkinton 149 

Shirley  Place 151 

The  Royall  House,  Medford 153 

Medford  Square 155 

Street  leading  to  Moll  Pitcher's 156 

Moll  Pitcher's  house  and  the  graveyard 157 

Some  fishermen's  hsts 159 

Circle  Street  and  Floyd  Ireson's  house 161 

"  This  is  where  the  sailors  in  pigtails  and  petticoats 

used  to  be  " 165 

St.  John's,  Portsmouth 168 

The  Gardiner  House  and  the  linden 169 

Stoodley's 171 

Plymouth,  the  home  of  Priscilla 172 

A  country  road 173 

Decorative  designs  .     .  Title,  7,  8,  9,  12,  105,  106,  134,  175 

Initials 15.  63,  109,  137 


PRISCILLA 


J  ,vva,^-<l^^«-' 


# 


PRISCILbA 


'The  swallow  with  summer 
Will  wing  o'er  the  seas, 
The  wind  that  I  sigh  to 
Will  visit  thy  frees .      J 
"^77?^  ship  that  it  hastens 

Thy  ports  ivill  contain, 
^^ht  me -I shall  never 

ee  England  again!" 


OFTEN  fancy  John  Alden, 
and  others,  too,  among  his 
companions  of  kindly  fame, 
wandering  down  the  long 
Plymouth  beach  and  mur- 
muring to  themselves 
thoughts  like  these.  And  I 
like  to  look  in  the  annals  of 
the  gentle  Pilgrims  and  the 


1 6  Priscilla. 

sterner  Puritans  for  any  pages  where  one 
may  find  muffled  for  a  moment  the  strain  of 
high  emprise  which  wins  our  awe  and  our 
praise,  but  not  so  surely  our  love,  and  gain 
access  on  their  more  human  side  to  the  men 
and  women  who  lived  the  noblest  romance  in 
all  history. 

So  one  comes  on  the  story  of  the  Lady 
Arbella,  and  her  love  and  death,  with  the 
sweet  surprise  one  has  in  finding  a  fragile 
flower  among  granite  ledges.  So  the  Baby 
Peregrine's  velvet  cheek  has  the  unconscious 
caress  of  every  mother  who  thinks  of  him 
rocked  to  sleep  in  his  rough  cradle  by  the 
sounding  sea.  So  the  thought  deals  tenderly 
with  Dorothy  Bradford,  who  crossed  the 
mighty  darkness  of  the  deep  only  to  fall 
overboard  from  the  "  Mayflower,"  and  be 
drowned  in  harbor,  and  would  fain  reap  some 
harvest  of  romance  in  the  coming  over  sea, 
three  years  afterward,  of  Mrs.  Southworth, 
with  her  young  sons,  Constant  and  Thomas, 
to  marry  the  Governor,  who  had  loved  her  as 
Alice  Carpenter  lang  syne.    And  so  the  story 


ite<i,^ 


Priscilla.  19 

of  John  Alden's  courtship  is  read  as  if  we 
had  found  some  human  beings  camped  in 
the  midst  of  demigods. 

Certainly  Miles  Standish  was  not  of  the 
demigods,  if  he  was  of  the  heroes.  No  Puri- 
tan ascetic  he,  by  nature  or  belief.  One 
might  imagine  him  some  soul  that  failed  to 
find  incarnation  among  the  captains  and 
pirates  of  the  great  Elizabeth's  time,  the 
Raleighs  and  Drakes  and  Frobishers,  and 
who,  coming  along  a  hundred  years  too  late, 
did  his  best  to  repair  the  mistake.  A  choleric 
fellow,  who  had  quarrelled  with  his  kin,  and 
held  himself  wronged  by  them  of  his  patri- 
mony ;  of  a  quarrelsome  race,  indeed,  that 
had  long  divided  itself  into  the  Catholic 
Standishes  of  Standish  and  the  Protestant 
Standishes  of  Duxbury;  a  soldier  who  served 
the  Queen  in  a  foreign  garrison,  and  of  habits 
and  tastes  the  more  emphasized  because  he 
was  a  little  man ;  supposed  never  to  have 
been  of  the  same  communion  as  those  with 
whom  he  cast  in  his  lot,  —  it  is  not  easy  to 
sec  the  reason  of  his  attraction  to  the  Pilgrims 


20  Priscilla. 

in  Holland.  Perhaps  he  chose  his  wife,  Rose, 
from  among  them,  and  so  united  himself  to 
them ;  if  not  that,  then  possibly  she  herself 
may  have  been  inclined  to  their  faith,  and 
have  drawn  him  with  her ;  or  it  may  have 
been  that  his  doughty  spirit  could  not  brook 
to  see  oppression,  and  must  needs  espouse 
and  champion  the  side  crushed  by  authority. 
For  the  rest,  at  the  age  of  thirty-five  the  love 
of  adventure  was  still  an  active  passion  with 
him.  That  he  was  of  quick,  but  not  deep 
affections  is  plain  from  the  swiftness  with 
which  he  would  fain  have  consoled  himself 
after  the  death  of  Rose,  his  wife ;  and,  that 
effort  failing,  by  his  sending  to  England  for 
'his  wife's  sister  Barbara,  as  it  is  supposed, 
and  marrj^ing  her  out  of  hand.  That  he  was 
behind  the  spirit  of  the  movement  with  which 
he  was  connected  may  be  judged  by  his 
bringing  home  and  setting  up  the  gory  head 
of  his  conquered  foe ;  for  although  he  was 
not  alone  in  that  retrograde  act,  since  he  only 
did  what  he  had  been  ordered  to  do  by  the 
elders,  yet  the  holy  John  Robinson,  the  in- 


%. 


Priscilla. 


23 


spirer  and  conscience  of  them  all,  cried  out 
at  that,  "  Oh  that  he  had  converted  some 
before  he  killed  any !  "  Nevertheless,  that 
and  other  bloody  deeds  seem  to  have  been 
thoroughly  informed  with  his  own  satisfaction 
in  them.  His  armor,  his  sword,  his  incon- 
ceivable courage,  his  rough  piety,  that  "swore 
a  prayer  or  two,"  —  all  give  a  flavor  of  even 
earlier  times  to  the  story  of  his  day,  and  bring 
into  the  life  when  certain  dainties  were  for- 
bidden, as  smacking  of  Papistry,  a  goodly 
flavor  of  wassail-bowls,  and  a  certain  power- 
ful reminiscence  of  the  troops  in  Flanders. 

That  such  a  nature  as  the  fiery  Captain's 
could  not  exist  without  the  soothing  touch 
of  love,  could  not  brook  loneliness,  and  could 
not  endure  grief,  but  must  needs  arm  himself 
with  forgetful ness  and  a  new  love  when  sor- 
row came  to  him  in  the  loss  of  the  old,  is 
of  course  to  be  expected.  If  he  were  a  little 
precipitate  in  asking  for  Priscilla's  affection 
before  Rose  had  been  in  her  unnamed  grave 
three  months,  something  of  the  blame  is  due 
to  the  condition  of  the  colony,  which  made 


24  Priscilla. 

sentimental  considerations  of  less  value  than 
practical  ones,  —  an  evident  fact,  when  Mr. 
Winslovv  almost  immediately  on  the  death  of 
his  wife  married  the  mother  of  Peregrine 
White,  not  two  months  a  widow,  hardly  more 
a  mother. 

Apparently  there  were  not  a  great  many 
young  girls  in  the  little  company.  The  gen- 
tle Priscilla  MuUins  and  the  high-minded 
Mary  Chilton  were  the  most  prominent  ones, 
at  any  rate.  One  knows  instinctively  that  it 
would  not  be  Mary  Chilton  towards  whom 
the  soldier  would  be  drawn,  —  the  daring  and 
spirited  girl  who  must  be  the  first  to  spring 
ashore  when  the  boat  touched  land.  It  is 
true  that  John  Alden's  descendants  ungal- 
lantly  declare  that  he  was  before  her  in  that 
act;  but  no  one  disputes  her  claim  to  be  the 
first  woman  whose  root  touched  shore ;  and 
that  is  quite  enough  for  one  who  loves  to 
think  of  her  and  of  the  noble  and  serene 
Ann  Hutchinson  as  the  far-away  mothers 
of  the  loftiest  and  loveliest  soul  she  ever 
knew. 


Priscilla.  27 

One  can  well  conjecture  Mary  Chilton  as 
comforting  and  supporting  Priscilla  in  the 
terrors  of  that  voyage,  in  such  storms  as  that 
where  the  little  ship,  tossed  at  the  waves' 
will,  lay  almost  on  her  beam-ends,  and  the 
drowning  man  who  had  gone  down  fathoms 
deep  clutched  her  topsail-halyards  and  saved 
himself;  or  in  calmer  moments  reading  the 
blessed  promises  of  His  word-  Young  girls 
willing  to  undertake  that  voyage,  that  en- 
terprise, and  whose  hearts  were  already  so 
turned  heavenward  as  the  act  implied,  must 
have  been  of  a  lofty  type  of  thought  and 
nature;  they  must  often  have  walked  the 
narrow  deck,  exchanging  the  confidences  of 
their  hopes  and  dreams.  I  see  them  sitting 
and  softly  singing  hymns  together,  on  the 
eve  of  that  first  Sunday  on  the  new  coast, 
sitting  by  that  fragrant  fire  of  the  red  cedar 
which  Captain  Standish  brought  back  to  the 
ships  after  the  first  exploration  of  the  forest. 
Priscilla  might  have  sung,  "  The  Lord  is  my 
shepherd,"  and  the  voice  of  Rose  may  have 
added  a  note  of  sweetness  to  the  strain.     But 


28  Priscilla. 

that  gentle  measure  would  never  have  ex- 
pressed the  feelings  of  the  Captain,  whose 
God  was  "  a  man  of  war."  If,  out  of  the 
tunes  allowed,  there  were  one  that  fitted 
the  wild  burden,  —  and  unless  their  annexa- 
tion to  the  book  of  Common  Prayer  caused 
the  disapproval  of  "  All  such  Psalms  of 
David  as  Thomas  Sternholde,  late  Grome 
of  the  Kinges  Majestyes  Robes,  did  in  his 
lyfe-tyme  drawe  into  Englyshe  Metre,"  — 
I  can  feel  the  zest  with  which  the  Captain 
may  have  roared  out,  — 

"  The  Lord  descended  from  above, 

And  bowed  the  heavens  high, 
And  underneath  His  feet  He  cast 

The  darkness  of  the  sky. 
On  seraph  and  on  cherubim 

Full  royally  He  rode, 
And  on  the  wings  of  mighty  winds 

Came  flying  all  abroad  !  " 

One  might  suppose  that  Priscilla,  gentle 
as  tradition  represents  her,  would  have  been 
attracted  by  the  fire  and  spirit  of  the  brave 
Captain.     But  perhaps  she  was  not  so  very 


"  /  T  I 


Priscilla.  31 

gentle.  Was  there  a  spice  of  feminine  co- 
quetry in  her  famous  speech  to  John  Aldcn, 
for  all  her  sweet  Puritanism?  Or  was  it  that 
she  understood  the  dignity  and  worth  of 
womanhood,  and  was  the  first  in  this  new 
land  to  take  her  stand  upon   it  ? 

The  whole  story  of  the  courtship  which 
her  two  lovers  paid  to  her  is  a  bit  of  human 
nature  suddenly  revealing  itself  in  the  flame 
of  a  great  passion,  —  a  mighty  drama  moving 
before  us,  and  a  chance  light  thrown  upon 
the  stage  giving  the  life  and  motion  of  a 
scene  within  a  scene.  There  is  a  touching 
quality  in  the  modest  feeling  of  the  soldier; 
he  is  still  a  young  man,  not  at  all  grizzled, 
or  old,  or  gray,  as  the  poet  paints  him,  — 
perhaps  thirty-five  or  thirty-six  years  old. 
Daring  death  at  every  daily  exposure  of  the 
colony  to  dangers  from  disease,  from  the 
tomahawk,  from  the  sea,  from  the  forest, 
always  the  one  to  go  foremost  and  receive 
the  brunt,  to  put  his  own  life  and  safety  a 
barrier  against  the  common  enemy,  — yet  he 
shrank  from  tellincf  a  cfirl  that  she  had  fired 


32  Priscilla. 

his  inflammable  heart,  and  would  fain  let 
her  know  the  fact  by  the  one  who,  if  he  has 
left  no  record  of  polished  tongue  or  ready- 
phrase,  was  the  one  he  loved  as  the  hero 
loves  the  man  of  peace,  the  one  who  loved 
him  equally,  —  the  youth  of  twenty-three 
whose  "  countenance  of  gospel  looks  "  could 
hardly  at  that  time  have  carried  in  its  delicate 
lineaments  much  of  the  greatness  of  nature 
that  may  have  belonged  to  the  ancestor  of 
two  of  our  Presidents. 

For  the  purposes  of  romance,  fathers  and 
mothers  are  often  much  in  the  way ;  and  the 
poet  and  the  romancer,  with  a  reckless  dis- 
regard of  the  life  and  safety  of  Mr.  William 
Mullins,  her  respected  parent,  represent  Pris- 
cilla as  orphaned  while  her  father  was  yet 
alive.  It  was  to  Mr.  Mullins  that  John  Alden, 
torn  between  duty  and  passion,  and  doubtless 
pale  with  suffering,  presented  the  Captain's 
claims.  If  the  matter  was  urged  rather  per- 
functorily, Mr.  Mullins  seems  not  to  have 
noticed  it,  as  he  gave  his  ready  consent. 
But  we  may  be  confident  that  Priscilla  did ; 


Priscilla.  35 

and  that,  after  all,  maidenly  delicacy  would 
never  have  suffered  her  to  utter  her  historic 
words,  "  Why  don't  you  speak  for  yourself, 
John?"  if  the  deadly  sinking  of  his  heart 
had  not  been  evident  in  his  downcast  face. 
Does  it  need  any  chronicle  to  tell  us  what  a 
flame  of  joy  shot  through  John  Alden's  heart 
at  the  instant  of  those  words,  —  what  an  icy 
wave  of  despair  quenched  it,  —  what  a  horror 
of  shame  overcame  Priscilla  till  her  blushes 
became  a  pain?  For  when  she  had  dared 
so  much,  and  dared  in  vain,  what  else  but 
shame  could  be  her  portion? 

They  must  have  been  dark  days  that  fol- 
lowed for  the  two  young  lovers.  Can  you 
not  see  John  Alden  trying  to  walk  away  his 
trouble  on  the  stretch  of  the  long  beach,  to 
escape  his  sense  of  treachery,  his  sorrow  in 
his  friend's  displeasure,  his  joy  and  his  shame 
together? 

"  There,  my  cloak  about  my  face, 
Up  and  down  the  sands  I  'd  pace, 
Makins;  footprints  for  the  spray 
To  wash  away. 


36  Priscilla. 

"  Up  and  down  the  barren  beaches, 
Round  the  ragged  belts  of  land, 
In  along  the  curving  reaches. 
Out  along  the  horns  of  sand." 


There,  too,  came  Priscilla,  without  much 
doubt,  when  the  closeness  of  the  little  cluster 
of  log  huts,  within  a  few  feet  of  one  another, 
grew  too  oppressive,  or  the  notion  that 
others  looked  askance  at  her,  lest  in  an> 
recklessness  of  desperation  the  Captain,  the 
mainstay  of  the  colony,  threw  his  life  away 


,rv,W  i-lA, 


.'^:'J  h/avi^*- 


Priscilla.  39 

in  the  daily  expeditions  he  undertook,  —  came 
not  as  girls  stroll  along  the  shore  to  gather 
shells,  to  write  their  names  on  the  sand,  to 
pick  up  the  seaweed  with  hues  like  those 

"  Torn  from  the  scarfs  and  gonfalons  of  Kings 
Who  dwell  beneath  the  waters," 

as  very  likely  she  had  done  ere  this,  but  to 
forget  her  trouble,  to  diffuse  and  lose  it. 
For  here,  added  to  homesickness  and  horror 
and  impending  famine,  was  a  new  trouble, 
worse  perhaps  than  all  the  rest.  If  her  lover 
had  been  lost  at  sea,  she  might  have  watched 
for  his  sail, 

"And  hope  at  her  yearning  heart  would  knock 
When  a  sunbeam  on  a  far-off  rock 
Married  a  wreath  of  wandering  foam." 

But  this  was  more  unbearable  than  loss:  she 
had  dishonored  herself  in  his  eyes ;  she  had 
betrayed  herself,  and  he  had  scorned  her; 
and  she  came  to  the  sea  for  the  comfort  which 
nearness  to  the  vast  and  the  infinite  alwa}'s 
gives.  Even  that  was  not  solitude  ;  for  there, 
a  mile  away,  lay   the  "  Mayflower,"  still    at 


40  Priscilla. 

anchor,  where  the  spy-glass  made  her  pris- 
oner, while  it  was  not  safe  for  a  lonely  girl  to 
tread  the  shore  at  night,  watching  the  glow 
of  the  evening  star  or  the  moonswale  on  the 
sea.  Perhaps,  with  Mary  Chilton  by  her  side, 
or  with  some  of  the  smaller  children  of  the 
colony,  she  climbed  a  hill,  protected  by 
the  minion  and  the  other  piece  of  ordnance, 
which  were  afterwards  mounted  on  the  roof 
of  the  rude  church,  and  looked  down  over 
the  cluster  of  cabins  where  now  the  fair  town 
lies,  and  thought  life  hard  and  sorry,  and 
longed,  as  John  Alden  himself  did,  for  the 
shelter  of  Old  England.  Perhaps  she  had 
no  time  for  lovesick  fancies,  anyway,  in  the 
growing  sickness  among  the  people,  which 
tasked  the  strength  and  love  of  all ;  and 
when,  watching  with  the  sick  at  night,  she 
thrust  aside  a  casement  latticed  with  oiled 
paper,  or  chanced  to  go  outside  the  door  for 
fresh  water  to  cool  a  fevered  lip,  she  saw  a 
planet  rising  out  of  the  sea,  or  the  immeasur- 
able universe  of  stars  wheeling  overhead,  over 
desolate  shore,    and   water,    and   wilderness, 


Priscilla. 


43 


she  felt  her  own  woe  too  trivial  to  be  dwelt 
upon;   and  when  on  the  third  of  March  her 


^ 


it^Jii 


,1  1,7--  «     -  /  ,  Z'— -^    ~   "^  "~»    '' 

'  k]  V.'  -  ■,'  ^'  I  '/ifn  -^  » — -  — i 

\l  '  if.  \m  . ,  ' 


father  died  and  was  laid  in  the  field  where 
the  wheat  was  planted  over  the  level  graves 
for  fear  of  the  Indians,  we  may  be  sure  that 


44  Priscilla. 

she  saw  her  trouble  as  part  of  the  cross  she 
was  to  bear,  and  waited  in  patience  and 
meekness  either  till  the  rumor  came  of  the 
death  of  Miles  Standish  in  the  Indian  skir- 
mish, —  of  which  we  know  nothing,  —  or  till 
John  Alden  had  made  it  up  with  his  con- 
science and  found  his  chance,  not  in  the 
crowded  little  log  huts,  not  on  the  open 
shore,  but  within  the  leafy  covert  of  the 
freshly  springing  woodside,  with  none  but 
the  fallow  deer  to  see  them,  to  put  an  end 
to  her  unrest. 

Probably  that  period  of  bliss  now  dawned 
which  makes  most  lovers  feel  themselves  lifted 
into  a  region  just  above  the  earth  and  when 
they  tread  on  air.  It  was  in  the  hallowed  time 
of  this  courtship,  on  the  skirts  of  the  deep 
pine  forests,  that  they  first  happened  on  the 
mayflower,  the  epigea,  full  of  the  sweetest 
essence  of  the  earth  which  lends  it  her  name, 
and  felt  as  if  love  and  youth  and  joy  and 
innocence  had  invented  a  flower  for  them 
alone,  —  the  deeply  rosy  and  ineffably  fra- 
grant  mayflower   that   blooms   only   in    the 


Plymouth  woods  in  its 
pink  perfection,  and  whose 
breath  must  have  seemed 
Hke  a  breath  blown  out 
of  the  open  doors  of  the 
new  life  awaiting  them 
together.  If  they  had 
ventured  as  far  as  any  of 
the  numberless  ponds,  set 


^  'il.AJ.^  JoUt^ 


48  Priscilla. 

like  jewels  in  the  ring  of  the  green  woods 
about  them,  something  later  in  their  new 
year,  they  would  have  found  the  blushing 
sabbatia  in  all  its  pristine  loveliness, — the 
flower  most  typical  of  Priscilla  herself;  the 
flower  to  which  some  fortunate  fate,  in  view 
of  the  sabbatical  character  of  the  region,  gave 
the  name  of  an  old  Italian  botanist,  as  if  it 
were  its  own  from  the  beginning;  a  flower 
which  is  to-day  less  rare  around  Plymouth 
than  elsewhere.  Now,  in  the  soft  spring 
evenings,  too,  it  may  be  that  they  strolled 
along  the  beach,  and  watched  the  phosphor- 
escence of  the  waters  playing  about  the  sacred 
rock  with  which  the  continent  had  gone  out 
first  to  meet  them,  all  unweeting  that  it  was 
the  "  corner-stone  of  a  nation."  Now,  —  for 
lovers  will  be  lovers  still,  although  the  whole 
body  of  Calvinism  be  behind  them,  and  the 
lurking  foe  of  the  forest  before,  —  they  sat 
on  the  Burial  Hill  by  night,  and  watched 
such  a  scene  as  William  Allingham  has 
pictured,  — 


LJV^ 


Priscilla. 

Above  the  lieadlands  massy,  dim, 
A  swelling  glow,  a  fiery  birth, 

A  marvel  in  the  sky  doth  swim, 
Advanced  upon  the  hush  of  earth. 


51 


"  The  globe,  o'erhanging  bright  and  brave 
The  pale  green-glimmering  ocean-floor, 
Silvers  its  wave,  its  rustling  wave 
Soft  folded  on  the  shelving  floor. 

"O  lonely  moon,  a  lonely  place 
I  Is  this  thou  cheerest  with  thy  face; 
Three  sand-side  houses,  and  afar 
The  steady  beacon's  faithful  star  "  — 

only,  instead  of  the  three  sand-side  houses  it 
was  "  the  Seven  Houses  of  Plymouth,"  and 


52  Priscilla. 

all  the  beacon  was  the  light  in  the  "  May- 
flower's "  or  the  "  Fortune's  "  shrouds. 

That  the  betrothal  did  not  impair  the 
friendship  of  the  lovers  with  the  impetuous 
Captain  Standish,  we  can  understand  from 
the  fact  that  when,  subsequently,  the  Captain 
built  his  house  over  on  Duxbury  Hill,  John 
Alden's  house  stood  near  it ;  and  that  later, 
—  and  unhindered,  for  aught  we  know,  — 
John  Alden's  daughter  married  the  Captain's 
son.  It  pleases  me  to  think  that  the  dear 
daughter-in-law,  by  whom,  in  his  last  will 
and  testament,  the  old  Captain  desired  to 
be  buried,  was  the  daughter  of  Priscilla 
Mullins. 

Priscilla  and  John  must  have  had  time 
enough  for  this  sweet  acceptance  of  life  and 
nature  together,  for  although  in  other  in- 
stances courtship  was  brief,  yet  we  know  that 
their  wedding  certainly  did  not  take  place  till 
May,  as  Governor  Winslow  then  married  Mrs. 
White,  and  that  marriage  was  recorded  as  the 
first  in  the  colony.  There  is  indeed  some 
probability  that  the  engagement  of  the  young 


/;  n 


^aa^'r:^. 


Priscilla.  55 

people  was  of  quite  another  character  from 
the  incomprehensibly  brief  one  just  men- 
tioned. Perhaps  John  Alden  was  building 
his  house,  and  it  may  be  that  it  had  to  be 
more  or  less  commodious,  since  he  probably 
became  the  protector  of  the  family  which 
Mr.  Mullins  left,  and  which  is  registered  as 
numbering  five  persons  upon  landing.  But 
if  we  accept  the  legend  regarding  the  wed- 
ding journey,  we  might  have  to  postpone  the 
bridal  for  some  seasons,  as  it  was  not  until 
three  years  after  their  arrival  that  Edward 
Winslow,  having  gone  to  England  and  re- 
turned with  cattle,  made  such  a  thing  possible 
as  that  traditional  ride  on  the  back  of  the 
gentle  white  bull  with  its  crimson  cloth  and 
cushion. 

In  fact,  the  incidents  of  real  occurrence 
and  the  traditions  of  real  descent,  concern- 
ing the  courtship  of  Priscilla,  are  very  few. 
We  know  that  Rose  Standish  died ;  that  the 
Captain  sent  John  Alden  to  urge  his  suit 
before  Mr.  Mullins,  who  replied  favorably; 
that    Priscilla    asked    him    why    he    did    not 


56 


Priscilla. 


speak  for  himself;  that 
Mr.  Mullins  presently 
died  ;  that  Captain  Stan- 
dish  presently  married 
elsewhere  ;  and  that 
John  eventually  married 
Priscilla,  lived  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  Captain,  mar- 
ried his  daughter  to  the  Cap- 
tain's son,  and  died  in  his  old 
age,  being  known  to  the  end 
as  a  severe  and  righteous  and 
reverend  man.  These  are  the 
bare  facts ;  all  the  rest  is 
coloring  and  conjecture.  Yet 
one  has  the  right  to  surround  these  facts 
with  all  the  possibilities  of  human  emotion, 


Priscilla. 


57 


alike 
in     any 
age  and 
with       any 
people,    which 
go  to  the  mak- 
ing   of    romance    and 
poetry,  and  which  will 
do  so  as  long  as  hearts 
beat,  lips  tremble,  and 
souls  desire   compan-. 
ionship. 

It  is  because  we  like 
to  make  these  people, 
looming  large  through 
the  mists  of  time,  and  on 
the  stage  of  their  mighty 
drama,  real  enough  for 
our  sympathies,  that  we  love  Mr.  Longfellow's 
version  of  their  story.     Nothing  more  skilful. 


58  Priscilla. 

gentle,  and  beautiful  has  ever  been  written 
concerning  the  Pilgrims  than  the  beloved 
poet's  verses.  Every  incident  in  their  pages 
is  absolutely  true  to  the  life  of  the  period, 
and  although  the  anachronisms  are  many, 
yet  they  do  not  exceed  the  province  of 
poetic  license,  —  they  are  perhaps  necessary 
to  it;  and  many  of  the  events  are  those 
which  actually  took  place,  if  not  at  the  stated 
time.  Thus,  for  instance,  it  was  at  a  later 
season  than  the  poem  intimates  that  the  gory 
head  of  the  savage  was  brought  home ;  yet 
it  was  brought  home.  It  was  at  another  date 
that  the  rattlesnake  skin  filled  with  arrows 
was  sent ;  yet  it  was  sent.  It  was  Governor 
Bradford  and  not  Captain  Standish  who  re- 
turned it  stuffed  with  powder  and  shot ;  yet 
it  was  returned.  It  was  much  later  than 
represented  that  property  was  held  in  sev- 
eralty, and  individuals  owned  their  dwell- 
ings ;  yet  they  did  do  so  in  time.  It  was 
much  later  than  the  first  autumn  that  the 
ships  of  the  merchants  brought  cattle ;  yet 
they  did  bring  cattle.     But  whether  the  cat- 


Priscilla. 


59 


tie  came  early  or  late,  that  snow-white  bull 
with    his    crimson   saddle-cloth    gives    occa- 


sion for  one  of  the  most  beautiful  pictures 
in  literature.  Europa  herself,  fleeing  over 
the  meadow  on  her  white  bull,  flecked  with 


6o  Priscilla. 

warm  sunshine,  with  shadows  of  leaves  and 
flowers,  all  white  and  rosy  loveliness  as  she 
fled,  is  not  a  fairer  picture  to  the  mind  than 
this  exquisite  one  of  the  bridal  procession, 
where 

"  Pleasantly  murmured  the  brook  as  they  crossed  the 

ford  in  the  forest, 
Pleased  with  the  image  that  passed,  like  a  dream  of 

love,  through  its  bosom. 
Tremulous,  floating  in  air,  o'er  the  depths  of  the  azure 

abysses. 
Down  through  the  golden  leaves  the  sun  was  pouring 

his  splendors. 
Gleaming  on  purple  grapes  that,  from  branches  above 

them  suspended. 
Mingled  their  odorous  breath  with  the  balm  of   the 

pine  and  the  fir-tree. 
Wild   and   sweet  as   the   clusters   that  grew    in   the 

valley  of  Eshcol, 
Like   a  picture,  it  seemed,  of   the  primitive  pastoral 

ages. 
Fresh  with  the  youth  of  the  world." 


AGNES   SURRIAGE 


ACNES  5URRIAGE 

"Milled  by  Fancy's  meteor  ray, 
By  Passion  driven , 
^utyet  the  light  tijat  led  astray 
h/iu  liaht  from  Heaven 

NE  of  the  few  perfect 
jewels  of  romance, 
needing  neither  the 
craft  of  imagination 
nor  cunning  device 
of  word-cutting  lap- 
idary, is  that  of 
Agnes  Surriage,  so 
improbable,  according  to  every-day  stand- 
ards, so  informed  with  the  truest  senti- 
ment, and  so  calculated  to  satisfy  every 
exaction  of  literary  art,  that  even  the  most 
critical  eye  might  be  forgiven  for  tracing 
its  shifting  color  to  the  light  of  fancy,  and 
not  of  homely  truth.  Even  at  the  present 
day,  when  the  "Neck"  is  overrun  by  the 
too-civilized  cottager,  to  whose  gilded   ease 


64 


Agnes  Surriage. 


summer  life  everywhere  most  patiently  con- 
forms, Marblehead  is  one  of  our  coast  won- 
ders, —  a  fortress  perennially  held  by  beauty, 
and  dedicated  to  her  use;  but  let  the  remi- 
niscent gaze  wander  back  a  century  and  a  half, 


and  how  entirely  fitted  to  the  requirements 
of  fancy  would  it  find  the  quaint  town,  the 
vagrant  peninsula,  and  serenely  hospitable 
harbor !  The  town  itself  was  fantastically 
builded,  as  if  by  a  generation  of  autocratic 
landowners,  each  with  a  wilful  bee  in  his 
bonnet.     Upstairs    and    downstairs    ran    the 


_/ 


..C^J\ 


Agnes  Surriage. 


67 


streets ;  they  would  have  respected  not  my 
lady's  chamber.  Their  modest  dwellings 
seem  by  no  means  the  outcome  of  a  com- 
munity governed  by  common  designs  and 
necessities  ;  rather  do  they  voice  a  capricious 
and  eccentric  individualism. 

"  Well,  you  see,"  said  an  old  Marbleheader, 
indulgently,  "  they  built 
the  houses  fust,  an'  the 
streets  arterwards.  One 
man  says  to  himself, 
'  I  'm  a-goin'  to  set  here ; 
you  can  set  where  you  're 
a  mind  to.'  But,"  he 
added,  in  loyal  justifica- 
tion of  his  forbears,  "  I 

tell  ye  what  't  is,  they  done  the  best  they 
could  with  what  they  had  to  do  with  !  " 

For  they  were  governed  by  no  inexplicable 
and  crazy  fancy,  —  these  sturdy  fishermen  of 
Marblehead ;  they  were  merely  constrained 
by  the  rigid  requirements  of  their  chosen 
site.  Building  on  that  stony  hillside,  they 
were  slaves  of  the    rock,   dominated   by   it. 


68  Agnes  Surriage. 

pressed  into  corners.  The  houses  them- 
selves were  founded  upon  solid  ledges,  while 
the  principal  streets  followed  the  natural  val- 
leys between;  and  with  all  such  rioting  of 
irregularity,  that  long-past  generation  was 
doubtless  well  content.  A  house  set  "  catty- 
cornered  "  to  the  world  at  large,  sovereign 
over  its  bit  of  a  garden,  was  sufficient  unto 
itself,  overtopped  though  it  were  by  the  few 
great  colonial  mansions,  upspringing  here 
and  there,  or  by  the  solid  dignity  of  the  old 
Town-House.  The  smaller  dividing  paths, 
zigzag  as  they  would,  led  to  all  the  Romes 
of  local  traffic,  and  presently  the  houses  fol- 
lowed the  paths,  the  paths  developed  into 
rocky  streets,  and  lo !  there  was  Marblehead, 
a  town  dropped  from  the  skies,  and  each 
house  taking  root  where  it  fell. 

But  if  any  one  reading  the  tale  of  these 
wilful  dwellings  should  soberly  doubt  the 
common  interests  of  the  people,  let  him 
climb  the  rocky  eminence  in  their  midst  to 
the  old  graveyard,  where  stood  the  little 
church,  the  oldest  of  all;   here  the  first  set- 


i  ^. 


Agnes  Surriage. 


71 


tiers  worshipped,  and  here,  in  comforting 
nearness,  they  buried  their  dead,  within  the 
niches  spared  them  by  the  rock.  It  was  set 
thus  high,  this   homely  tabernacle   of  faith, 


to  overlook  land  and  water,  that  no  stealthy 
Indian  band  might  creep  upon  the  worship- 
pers unaware,  —  for  those  were  the  days  of 
the  church  militant  in  more  than  a  poetic 
sense.  An  admirable  spot  this  for  the  anti- 
quary, wherein  to  pursue  his  loving  labor  of 


72  Agnes  Surriage. 

coaxing  forward  a  reluctant  past !  Ancient 
headstones  will  salute  his  eye,  and  of  these 
said  one  local  lingerer,  garrulous  as  he  who 
discoursed  on  Yorick's  skull,  "  I  can  tell  the 
date  of 'em  all,  jest  as  I  could  a  buildin',  by 
the  architectur' !  "  But  let  him  not  conclude 
that  in  scanning  the  slabs  erected  two  cen- 
turies ago  he  has  seen  all,  —  for  here  lies 
many  an  unrecorded  grave.  "They  had  to 
send  to  England  for  their  stones  then,"  said 
the  Oldest  Inhabitant.  "  Poor  folks  could  n't 
afford  that,  an'    most  of  'em  went  without." 

Across  the  little  harbor,  at  nightfall  popu- 
lous with  white  sails,  stretches  the  "  Neck," 
once  a  lonely,  rock-defended  treasury  of 
beauty,  besieged  by  wave,  and  alternately 
lashed  and  caressed  by  the  fickle,  but  persist- 
ent foam.  Well  fitted  are  its  girdling  citadels 
for  enduring  warfare ;  their  towers  outlast  the 
feet  that  climb  them,  and  their  masonry 
crumbles  not  below,  save  slowly,  through  the 
infinite  patience  of  the  eternally  tossing  sea. 
And  when  the  eye  tired  of  this  majesty  of  the 
illimitable,  when  it  wearied  of  ocean  spray, 


Agnes  Surriage.  Th 

spouting  column-like  through  some  gigantic 
cleft,  and  found  itself  oppressed  by  the 
rhythm  of  rolling  foam,  what  would  it  have 
seen,  on  turning  inland  from  Castle  Rock, 
that  century  and  a  half  agone?  A  stretch  of 
green  pasture-land,  becoming  yellow  as 
August  marches  on,  —  the  "Neck"  itself. 
Then,  wandering  on  unwearied,  still  travers- 
ing the  "  Neck,"  sweet,  bosky  hollows,  where 
lie  to-day  such  treasures  of  shining  leaf  and 
soft-lipped  flower  as  Paradise  might  claim. 
These  are  the  wild,  sunken  gardens  on  the 
road  to  Devereux,  glowing  in  the  gold  of  a 
royal  tansy,  greenly  odorous  of  fern,  and 
sweet  with  the  wild  azalea,  —  honey-smeared 
and  pollen-powdered,  loved  of  the  bee,  and 
his  chief  tempter  to  drunken  revels  on  the 
way  from  market.  The  button-bush  holds 
aloft  her  sign  of  cool  white  balls ;  loosestrife 
stars  the  green  undergrowth  with  yellow ;  and 
over  stick  and  stone  the  blackberry  clings 
and  crowds.  There  the  wild  rose  lives  and 
blooms,  fed  on  manna  brought  by  roving 
winds    and    fleeting    sunlight,    never   unblest. 


74 


Agnes  Surriage. 


even  when  the  purveyors  of  honey  come 
winging  by,  to  rifle  her  sweets,  and  leave  her 
to  the    ripening   of  maturity  and   the    soHd 

glow  of  her 
red-hipped 
matron- 
hood.  And 
on  the  left 
again,  still 
facing 
south,  is 
the  insistent  sea,  drag- 
ging down  its  pebbly 
beach,  and  on  the  right,  the 
dimpling  harbor,  reddened, 
for  him  who  is  wise  enough 
to  wander  that  way  at  sunset, 
with  flaming  banners  of  the 
sky.  To  cross  the  harbor 
again,  and  follow  the  main- 
land back  to  a  point  nearly  opposite  the 
lighthouse  of  the  Neck,  is  to  find,  neighbored 
by  the  old  graveyard,  ruined  and  grassy  Fort 
Sewall,  to-day  the  lounging-place  for  village 


Agnes  Surriage. 


75 


great-grandfathers,     or     vantage-ground     for 
overlooking  a  yacht  race,  but  in   1742,  when 
Charles   Henry   Frankland   was   Collector  of 
the    Port    of 
Boston,    just 
a    building. 
And  one  day 
in    the    pre- 
vious     year, 
the       gallant 

young  Collector,  smartly  dressed 
in  the  fine  feathers  of  the  period, 
and  no  doubt  humming  a  song, 
—  since  he  seems  to  have  ful- 
filled all  the  conditions  of  an 
interesting  young  galliard,  — 
came  riding  down 
on  some  business 
connected  with 
the  prospective 
fort.  He  stopped  at  the  Foun- 
tain Inn  for  a  draught,  —  not 
so  innocent,  perhaps,  as  that  from  the  clear 
well    still    springing    near    the    spot,  —  and. 


76  Agnes  Surriage. 

scrubbing  the  tavern  floor,  there  knelt  before 
him,  in  lovely  disarray,  the  sweet  beggar- 
maid  destined  to  be  crowned  at  once  by  the 
favor  of  this  careless  Cophetua.  Let  that 
phrase  be  swiftly  amended !  Agnes  Sur- 
riage was  no  beggar-maid,  but  the  honest 
daughter  of  hard-working  fisher-folk,  and 
patient  under  her  own  birthright  of  toil. 
Her  beauty  was  something  rare  and  delicate, 
calculated  to  arrest  the  eye  and  chain  the 
heart;  the  simple  dignity  of  her  demeanor 
was  no  more  to  be  affected  through  her 
menial  task  than  a  rose  by  clouded  skies. 
Her  fair  feet  were  naked,  and  blushed  not  at 
their  poverty,  but  Frankland's  heart  ached 
with  pity  of  them,  and  he  closed  her  fingers 
over  a  coin,  to  buy  shoes  and  stockings. 
Then  he  gave  her  "  good-day,"  and  rode 
away,  —  but  not  to  forget  her ;  only  to  muse 
on  her  grace,  and  to  start  at  the  vision  of 
her  eyes,  shining  between  him  and  his  bills 
of  merchandise  and  lading.  Again  he  came 
riding  that  way,  and  again  he  found  her,  still 
barefooted ;  but  when  he  reproached  her  for 


Agnes  Surriage.  79 

having  failed  to  put  his  coin  to  its  destined 
use,  she  blushed,  and  answered  in  the  homely- 
dialect  of  Marblehead,  which  yet  had  no 
power  over  the  music  of  her  voice,  that  the 
shoes  and  stockings  were  bought,  but  that 
she  kept  them  to  wear  to  meeting.  And 
now  the  young  Collector  went  often  and 
more  often  to  Marblehead,  until  the  day 
came  when  he  obtained  her  parents'  permis- 
sion to  become  her  guardian,  and  take  her 
away  to  be  educated.  So  the  wild  bird 
entered  voluntarily  into  the  life  of  cages,  to 
learn  the  demeanor  and  song-notes  which 
were  approved  by  the  fashionable  Boston  of 
the  day. 

The  quaint,  village-like,  and  yet  all-regal 
Boston  of  the  past !  Perhaps  this  was  one  of 
the  most  interesting  pages  of  its  life  history, 
before  the  royal  insolence  had  roused  in  it 
an  answering  manhood ;  when  fashion  scru- 
pulously followed  a  far-away  court  over  sea, 
and  the  daily  life  of  luxurious  British  officials 
was  so  distinct  from  that  of  the  Puritan  stra- 
tum of  society.     In    England,  public    affairs 


8o  Agnes  Surriage. 

seesawed  between  the  policies  of  George  11. 
and  Walpole,  and  from  the  world  of  letters, 
Richardson  and  Fielding  were  amusing  the 
young  bloods  of  the  day,  and  by  no  means 
toughening  their  moral  fibre.  The  leisure 
of  the  bold  Britons  who  ruled  over  us  was 
not  for  a  moment  poisoned  by  fear  of  Amer- 
ican defection  from  the  royal  mother-land. 
Rather,  for  men  like  Frankland,  was  this 
loitering  in  western  airs  their  Wanderjahr, 
a  pleasant  exile,  whence  they  would  some 
day  return,  with  treasures  of  new  experience, 
to  sit  down  beside  the  English  hearthstone, 
and,  Othello-like,  rehearse  the  wonders  they 
had  seen.  Meantime,  they  walked  the  streets, 
bravely  attired  in  small-clothes  and  wigs, 
discussing  the  troubles  brewing  with  the 
French,  and  seeking,  so  far  as  they  might, 
to  build  up  a  miniature  England  within  the 
savage-girdled  settlements  of  the  New  World. 
Sir  Harry  Frankland  stands  out  from  the 
faint  portraiture  of  the  time  as  one  of  the 
most  knightly  souls  of  all.  He  was  young, 
blest    with    an    attractive    presence,    and    his 


Agnes  Surriage. 


83 


tastes  were  those  of  the  gentleman  and  the 

scholar.     That  he  was   sensitive   and  refined 

even  to  the  point  of  evincing  that  feminine 

strain  of  temperament  so 

,  y  fascinating    in    a    manly 

man,     is    very    apparent 

from  the  fragmentary 

g<^       records   of  his   life, 

but  he  lacked   no 

sturdiness      of 

temper     or 

demeanor. 


Agnes  Surriage  responded  at  once  to  the 
new  influences  about  her.  Indeed,  she  was 
of  those  to  whom  borrowed  graces  are  ex- 


84  Agnes  Surriage. 

ternal  and  almost  unnecessary:  Nature  had 
dowered  her  with  the  riches  of  beauty,  nobil- 
ity, and  modesty  of  mien ;  and  to  adorn  her 
by  artifice  was  merely  to  remove  the  rose 
from  its  garden  bed,  and  set  it  in  a  silver 
vase.  From  God's  lady,  fitted  to  scrub  the 
tavern  floor  and  lose  no  charm  thereby,  she 
became  a  dame  who  might  have  been  com- 
mended to  courts  and  palaces.  She  learned 
to  sing,  to  play  on  the  harpsichord,  and  dance  ; 
for  painting,  embroidery,  and  all  the  fragile 
accomplishments  of  the  day,  she  had  a  sur- 
prising aptitude.  She  was  surrounded  by 
luxuries  which  might  have  proved  bewilder- 
ing to  a  less  simple  and  noble  nature,  and, 
last  of  all,  she  stooped  to  receive  the  crown 
of  her  guardian's  love.  Alas !  poor  maid 
of  Marblehead !  for  this  was  a  crown  that 
smirched  the  brow  and  stung  as  with  nettles, 
no  matter  how  bravely  its  blossoms  nodded 
above.  Frankland  loved  her,  but  he  was 
bound  by  the  fetters  of  an  ancestral  pride ; 
he  owed  all  to  his  fam.ily,  and  nothing  to 
his   own   manly  honor,  —  and   he  could   not 


^x;^**^ 


Agnes  Surriage. 


87 


marry  her.  It  is  pitiful  to  guess  with  what 
tragic  battlings  of  heart  and  conscience  her 
overthrow  must  have  been  accomplished,  but 
even  she  could  scarcely  have  counted  the 
cost,  —  the  daily  torture,   the  hourly  pinch 


of  circumstance,  when  one  after  another  of 
Boston's  best,  who  had  not  failed  to  recog- 
nize the  fishcr-girl,  rich  in  nothing  but  her 
dower  of  beauty  and  character,  refused  to 
countenance  the  fine  lady,  so  ironically  fa- 
vored of  Fortune.  In  the  humble  home 
at  Marblehead,  her   name  became  the   ke}-- 


88  Agnes  Surriage. 

note  of  shame ;  for  though  these  fisher-folk 
were  rude  of  speech  almost  beyond  belief, 
though  they  caroused  wildly  half  the  year; 
preparatory  to  their  summer  voyaging,  they 
had  a  hard  hand  and  a  rough  word  ready 
for  one  who  was  light  o'  love.  She  had 
given  all  for  the  one  jewel,  and  both  her 
little  worlds,  of  birth  and  adoption,  trem- 
bled from  their  centres.  All  the  more  did 
she  turn  to  Frankland,  as  to  her  sun  of  happi- 
ness, and  in  the  unfailing  warmth  of  his  affec- 
tion she  alternately  drooped  and  smiled. 

Then  began  the  second  and  more  glowing 
chapter  of  this  dramatic  tale.  Sir  Harry 
must  have  been  bitterly  moved  by  the  social 
ostracism  of  his  ward  and  lady,  and  he  short- 
ened the  period  of  her  expiation  by  the  only 
possible  device  left  him,  save  one,  and  took 
her  away.  He  had  bought  a  large  tract  of 
land  in  Hopkinton,  Massachusetts,  and  there 
he  proceeded  to  build  a  manor-house,  where, 
in  a  humble  fashion,  life  might  copy  the 
abundance  and  solid  magnificence  of  Eng- 
land's ancestral   homes.     The    country  itself 


ljlt£y /U^  m*\t^  cUc/  J-^^^  iM'n. 


Agnes  Surriage.  91 

was  a  wonder  of  hill  and  valley,  —  hills  where 
the  loftier  beauty  of  Wachusett  and  Monad- 
nock  might  be  viewed,  valley  where  a  happy 
village  nestled,  and  where  clear,  cool  streams 
flowed  lightly  to  their  outlet.  Sir  Harry  was 
a  clever  purveyor  of  the  good  things  of  life ; 
he  made  his  manor-house  commodious  and 
fair  to  see,  and  erected  a  comfortable  farm- 
house for  his  laborers ;  his  great  hall  roof 
was  supported  by  fluted  columns,  and  its 
walls  were  hung  with  tapestry,  rich  of  hue 
and  texture.  The  house  was  approached  by 
a  long  and  stately  avenue  cut  through  mag- 
nificent chestnut-trees ;  the  ground  sloped 
down  in  commanding  terraces  of  blooming 
sward,  and  the  gardens  and  orchards  were 
marvels  of  growth  and  abundance.  In  his 
gardening  he  took  delight,  but,  alas  for  human 
pride  and  power !  only  the  giant  box  of  his 
borders  and  a  few  ancient  trees  have  seen  the 
present  century,  to  attest  his  vanished  life. 

Here  the  two  must  have  lived  Arcadian 
days,  in  all  but  lightness  of  heart.  The 
lovely  maid,  for  whom  no    labor    had    been 


92  Agnes  Surriage. 

too  menial,  reigned  the  queen  of  this  lavish 
domain.      She    was    the    mistress    of    negro 


5Pr 


.  i; '  I 


1-1    ■!>•        I.     y 


slaves,  she  walked  in  silk  attire;  and  local 
gossip  assures  us  that  her  tastes  and  those 
of  Sir  Harry  were  in  the  most  perfect  har- 


Ascnes  Surriage. 


93 


mony.  They  rode  together  through  their 
own  plantation  or  over  the  fascinatingly  un- 
broken country  without ;  they  read  the  latest 
consignment  of  books  from  England  ;  and  Sir 
Harry  hunted  the  fox  and  hshed  for  trout  in 
the  cold  streams,  possibly  while  Agnes  did  a 
bit  of  graceful  and  ladylike  sketching  on  her 
own  account,  —  for  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  she  belonged  to  that  unexacting  era 
when  large  eyes  and  sloping  shoulders  were 
much  in  vogue,  and  when  the 
work  of  womankind  was  all  the 
more  attractive  for  being  a 
trifle  thin  and  "  very  pretty." 
Probably  her  accomplishments 
were  all  the  more  entrancing 
for  matching  "  lady's  Greek, 
without  the  accents."  Here  in 
their  primeval  wilderness,  pri- 
meval morals  were  more  to  be 
tolerated,  and  the  autocrats  of  Boston  did  not 
disdain  to  visit  them  — undoubtedly  without 
their  wives !  At  least  Sir  Harry  did  not 
lack  society;   and  there  is  a  tale  that  at  the 


94  Agnes  Surriage. 

banquets,  enlivened  by  the  choice  wines 
which  came  in  his  way  by  virtue  of  his  col- 
lectorship,  he,  canny  man!  drank  from  a 
glass  cunningly  made  shallow,  so  that  he 
could  toss  off  an  equal  number  of  potations 
with  his  guests,  and  yet  remain  sober  while 
they  slid  imperceptibly  under  the  table.  For 
in  these  days,  it  was  almost  incumbent  upon 
gentlemen  to  conclude  a  banquet  by  lying 
reclined  "  like  gods  together,  careless  of 
mankind." 

But  the  swiftly  moving  drama  could  not 
be  stayed ;  and  Sir  Harry,  called  to  Eng- 
land by  imperative  duties,  carried  his  treas- 
ure with  him  to  his  ancestral  home.  At 
least  there  was  this  to  be  said  in  his  favor, 
during  these  doubtful  days,  —  he  was  not  of 
those  who  love  and  ride  away,  and  his  loy- 
alty to  the  one  chosen  woman  never  suf- 
fered reproach.  In  England,  either  defiant 
or  strangely  obtuse  to  the  values  of  their 
relation,  he  introduced  Agnes  to  his  family ; 
but  neither  her  beauty  nor  accomplishments 
redeemed  her  unhappy  standing,  and  she  was 


As:nes  Surriage. 


95 


made  to  suffer  that  social  ignominy  which 
is  so  absolutely  blighting  to  a  sensitive  spirit. 
The  strange  irony  of  her  position  is  very 
dramatic  in  retrospect.  A  lovely  and  loving 
woman,  bound  to  the  man  who  should  have 


been  her  husband,  by  all  the  most  holy  vows 
of  nature,  she  was  destined  to  an  unrelieved 
and  bitter  expiation ;  and  though  Sir  Harry 
doubtless  suffered  with  her,  yet,  in  obedience 
to  the  laws  that  govern  womankind,  Agnes 
must  have  endured  a  desolation  of  misery 
entirely   unimagined    by  him.      Again    they 


9^  Agnes  Surriage. 

went  into  happy  exile,  and  made  the  grand 
tour  of  the  Continent,  ending  at  Lisbon,  at 
that  time  a  species  of  modern  Sybaris.  En- 
riched by  Brazihan  gold,  the  court  was  sup- 
ported in  a  magnificence  then  unparalleled 
in  Europe.  The  opera  was  the  finest  on  the 
Continent,  and  one  pageant  succeeded  an- 
other, obedient  to  the  whims  of  any  ever- 
regnant  luxury.  Here,  too,  on  the  eminence 
of  the  seven  hills,  a  colony  of  wealthy  English 
merchants  had  congregated,  and  spent  their 
fairy  gold,  flowing  back  through  the  magic 
portals  leading  to  the  New  World,  with  a 
prodigality  emulating  that  of  the  court.  Here 
Frankland  gave  himself  up  to  the  fair  god  of 
Pleasure ;  he  lived  as  if  there  were  to  be  no 
morrow,  and  lo  !  the  morrow  came,  and  with 
it  the  judgment  of  God.  On  All  Saints'  Day, 
1755,  the  sun  rose  in  splendor  over  the  city 
of  Lisbon  ;  and  all  its  inhabitants,  from  courtier 
to  beggar,  took  their  way  churchward,  for  the 
celebration  of  High  Mass.  Frankland,  in  his 
court  dress,  was  riding  with  a  lady,  when 
without   warning    the    earth   surged   sea-like 


Agnes  Surriage. 


97 


under   them,  and  a  neighboring   house  fell, 

engulfing  them  in  its  ruins.     The  lady  (who 

was    she,   O    Historic  Muse?    and  was  their 

talk  light  or  sober,  that  care-free 

A         day    in    Lisbon?),    this    unnamed 

lady,   in  her  agony  and 

terror,    bit    through    the 

sleeve      of     Frankland's 

cloth    coat,    and    tore    a 

piece   of   flesh    from    his 

arm.     And 

for  him,  he 

lay      help- 


less, reading  the  red  record  of  his  sins,  and 
adjudging  himself  in  nothing  so  guilty  as  the 


98  Agnes  Surriage. 

wrong  to  the  woman  who  loved  him.  Strange 
and  awful  scenes  had  driven  the  city  frantic. 
Churches  and  dwellings  had  fallen;  the  sea 
swelled  mountain-high,  and  swallowed  the 
quay,  with  its  thousands  of  bewildered  fugi- 
tives. Lisbon  went  mad,  and  beat  its  breast, 
beseeching  all  the  saints  for  mercy.  But  to 
one  great  spirit,  even  the  insecurity  of  the 
solid  earth  was  as  nothing  compared  with 
the  danger  of  her  beloved  mate.  Agnes 
Surriage,  aflame  with  anxiety  for  Frankland, 
ran  out,  as  soon  as  the  surging  streets  would 
give  her  foothold,  and  rushed  about  the  deso- 
lated city  in  agonizing  search.  By  some 
chance,  strange  as  all  the  chances  of  her 
dramatic  life,  she  came  upon  the  very  spot 
of  his  fearful  burial.  She  tore  at  the  rubbish 
above  him  with  her  tender  hands ;  she  of- 
fered large  rewards,  so  purchasing  the  avail- 
ing strength  of  others,  and  Frankland  was 
saved. 

To  court  and  people,  the  earthquake  voiced 
the  vengeance  of  an  angry  God;  to  Frank- 
land,  it  had  been  a  flaming  finger,  writing  on 


Agnes  Surriage.  loi 

the  wall  a  sentence  for  him  alone,  and  in 
security  he  did  not  forget  its  meaning.  Wait- 
ing only  for  the  healing  of  his  wounds,  he  at 
last  besought  the  blessing  of  holy  church 
upon  his  love;  and  Agnes  Surriage  under 
went  a  radiant  change  into  the  Lady  Agnes 
Frankland.  And  now  for  a  time  her  days 
became  gleaming  points  in  a  procession  of 
happiness.  Her  husband  returned  with  her 
to  England,  where  she  was  received  as  a  be- 
loved daughter  of  the  house,  and  enshrined 
in  those  steadfast  English  hearts,  where  fealty, 
once  given,  so  seldom  grows  cold ;  and  after 
a  tranquil  space,  the  two  set  sail  again  for 
America.  Even  amid  the  scenes  of  her 
former  martyrdom,  Agnes  was  no  longer  to 
be  regarded  as  an  alien  and  social  outcast. 
She  walked  into  Boston  society  as  walks  a 
princess  entering  her  rightful  domain,  and 
there  took  up  the  sceptre  of  social  sway  at 
the  aristocratic  North  End.  Frankland  had 
purchased  the  most  lordly  mansion  there, 
of  which  the  fragmentary  descriptions  are 
enough  to  make  the  antiquary's  mouth  water. 


I02 


Agnes  Surriage. 


The  stairs  ascending  from  the  great  hall  were 
so  broad  and  low  that  he  could  ride  his  pony 
up  and  down  in  safety ;  there  were  wonder- 
ful inlaid  floors,  Italian  marbles,  and  carven 


^jT 


-M^- 


:^^ 


•fr"' 


pillars.  There  Agnes  lived  the  life  of  a  dig- 
nified matron,  and  a  social  leader  whose  fiats 
none  might  gainsay.  Indeed,  from  this  time 
forward  her  story  is  that  of  the  happy  women 
whose  deeds  are  unrecorded,  and  is  only  to 
be  guessed  through  scanning  the  revelations 


Agnes  Surriage.  103 

of  her  husband's  journal.  His  health  seems 
to  have  guided  their  movements  in  great 
measure ;  for  they  again  visited  Lisbon,  and 
then  came  home  to  England,  where  he  died, 
in  1768. 

Lady  Frankland  returned  to  Hopkinton, 
and  there  she  lived  through  uneventful  days, 
with  her  sister  and  sister's  children,  oversee- 
ing her  spacious  estate,  and  entertaining  her 
hosts  of  friends,  until  1775,  that  fiery  date  of 
American  story.  A  jealous  patriotism  was 
rife ;  and  it  was  not  unnatural  that  the  widow 
of  an  officer  of  the  Crown,  herself  a  devotee 
of  the  Established  Church,  should  become 
an  object  of  local  suspicion,  hand  in  glove 
as  she  was  with  the  British  invaders  of  our 
peace.  Like  many  another  avowed  royalist, 
she  judged  it  best  to  leave  her  undefended 
estate  at  Hopkinton,  and  place  herself  under 
military  protection  in  Boston,  and  there  she 
arrived,  after  a  short  detention  by  some  over- 
zealous  patriot,  in  time  to  witness  the  battle 
of  Bunker  Hill  from  the  windows  of  her 
house,  and  to  receive  some  of  the  wounded 


I04  Agnes  Surriage. 

within  its  shelter.  Thence  she  sailed  for 
England,  as  our  unpleasantness  with  the 
mother-country  increased  in  warmth,  and  at 
this  point  she  becomes  lost  to  the  romance- 
loving  vision,  —  for, 
alas  for  those  who 
"  love  a  lover,"  and  in- 
sist upon  an  ideal  con- 
stancy! Lady  Frankland 
was  married,  in  the 
fourteenth  year  of  her 
widowhood,  to  John 
Drew,  a  wealthy  banker 
of  Chichester,  and  at 
Chichester  she  died,  in 
one  year's  time.  But 
after  all,  on  that  sober 
second  thought  which  is  so  powerful  in  re- 
gilding  a  tarnished  fancy,  does  not  her  re- 
marriage suit  still  better  the  requirements 
of  romance?  For  instead  of  dying  a  staid 
Lady  Frankland,  her  passions  merged  in 
the  vital  interests  of  caps  and  lap-dogs,  she 
transmutes  herself  into  another  person,  and 


Agnes  Surriage.  105 

thus  fades  out  into  an  unrecognized  future. 
Since  neither  the  name  of  Surriage  nor 
Frankland  is  predominant  in  its  legend, 
even  her  tomb  seems  lost;  and  the  mind 
goes  ever  back  in  fancy  to  her  maiden  name, 
her  maiden  state,  when  she  was  the  disguised 
and  humble  princess  of  Marblehead. 


MARTHA  HILTON 


-     ^^t— _ 


MARTHA  HILTON 


EW     ENGLAND 

had    her   spurts    of 
human  nature  in  old 
times,  whenever  she 
was    not   taken    up 
with     the     witches 
and  the  Tories,  and 
could  afford  a  nine- 
days'  wonder    over 
so   simple    a   thing 
as    a  marriage    be- 
tween high  and  low. 
For  we  had  not  got  then  to  a  professional 
denial  of  difference  between  high  and  low; 
not   as   yet   had    the    bell    of    Philadelphia 


no 


Martha  Hilton. 


cracked  its  heart,  Hke  the  philosopher  Chilo, 
with  pubhc  joy,  and  proclaimed  the  crooked 
ways  straight,  and  the  rough  places  plain. 
When  some  sweet  scrub  of  an  Agnes  Sur- 
riage  captured  a  Sir 
Harry,  at  the  end  of  a 
moving  third  act,  there 
was  a  thrill  of  awe  and 
satisfaction :  and  forth- 
with the  story  went  into 
our  folk-lore,  and  very 
properly;  since  it  had  inci- 
dents and  char- 
acter. Sly  damsels  in  Puritan 
caps  made  the  most  of  a  shift- 
ing society,  full  of  waifs  and 
strays  from  the  foreign  world. 
Royal  commissioners  were  yet 
to  be  seen,  and  gold-laced  Parisian  barons 
at  Newport  and  Norwich,  and  pirate  Black- 
beards  tacking  from  the  Shoals,  and  leaving 
sweethearts  to  wring  ghostly  hands  there  to 
this  day.  So  that  no  lass  had  too  dull  an 
outlook  upon  life,  nor  need  link  herself  with 


Martha  Hilton. 


1 1 


the  neighboring  yokel  whom  Providence  had 
assigned  her,  while  such  splendid  fish  were 
in  the  seas.    Let  her  but  wed  "above  her,"  and 
she  shall  be  a  fountain- 
head  of  precedent  and 
distinction,   and 
the     sister     ideal 
of  King  Co- 
phetua's  beg- 
gar-bride. 

Poor  Ag- 
nes of  Mar- 
blehead,  as  faithful  as  the  Nut-Browne  Maid 
herself,  adorns  her  romantic  station  with  liv- 
ing interest;  but  Martha  Hilton,  who  figures 
in  true  histories  and  in  Mr.  Longfellow's 
pretty  ballad,  is  a  heroine  of  the  letter, 
rather  than  of  the  spirit.  We  hear  nothing 
of  her  deserts  ;  we  hear  merely  of  her  suc- 
cess. She  became  Lady  Wentworth  (all  per- 
sonable Madams  were  Ladies  then  and  awhile 
after,  even  in  the  model  republican  air  of 
Mount  Vernon  !)  and  she  had  been  a  kitchen- 
wench.     But  she  was  also  the  descendant  of 


114 


Martha  Hilton. 


the  honorable  founder  of  Dover,  "  a  fish- 
monger in  London,"  even  as  the  great  and 
gouty  Governor,  her  appointed  spouse,  was 
grandson  to  a  noblest  work  of  God,  who,  in 
1670,  got  "  libertie  to  entertayne  strangers, 
and  sell  and  brew  beare."  In  that  house  of 
beer,  the  hearty-tim- 
,^_^^    ^  bered    house    planted 

yet  by  a  Portsmouth 
inlet,  with  one  timid 
bush  to  be  seen  over 
against  the  door,  was 
Benning  Wentworth 
born.  Having  sub- 
dued the  alphabet, 
grown  his  last  inch, 
looked  about,  married,  and  buried  his  sons 
and  Abigail  his  wife,  he  enters  upon  our 
tale  "inconsolable,  to  the  minuet  in  Ariadne^ 
He  had  played  a  game,  too,  and  lost,  since 
his  weeds  withered.  Having  proposed  him- 
self and  his  acres  to  young  Mistress  Pitman, 
he  had  the  mortification  to  see  her  prefer 
one    Shortridge,    a    mechanic.      The    sequel 


'iJtr. 


Martha  Hilton. 


117 


shows  that  Benning's  Excellency  could  rise 
grandly  to  an  occasion,  and  also  that  he  had 
an  amorphous  turn  for  the  humor  of  things ; 
for  he  had  the  obnoxious  mechanic  kid- 
napped and  sent  to  sea,  "  for  seven  years 
long,"  like  the  child  in  the  fairy-lay.  This 
stroke  of  playfulness  insured  him  nothing 
but  a  recoil  of  fate. 
Events  restored 
lovers  to  each 
other,  and  he  was 
left  to  con- 
sole himself 
with  his 
restless  col- 
ony, with  his  snuff-boxes  and  his  bowls.  And 
into  that  lonely  manor  of  his,  malformed  and 
delightful,  sleeping  over  against  Newcastle, 
meekly  as  befits  her  menial  office  (though 
it  is  to  be  suspected  that  she  was  always  a 
minx!)  enters  Martha  Hilton,  late  the  horror 
of  the  landlady  of  the  Earl  of  Halifax.  That 
well-conducted  Juno  of  Queen  Street,  be- 
holding a  shoeless   girl  fetching  water  from 


ii8 


Martha  Hilton. 


the  decent  pump  of  Portsmouth,  in  a  bare- 
shouldered  estate  sacred  only  to  the  indoor 
and  adult  orgies  of  the  aristocracy,  did  not 
content  herself,  as  the  poet  hath  it,  with 

"  O  Martha  Hilton,  fie  !  " 

Her  comment  had  greater  vivacity,  and  was 
pleasingly  metrical.  "You  Pat,  you  Pat,  how 
dare  you  go  looking  like 
that  ?  "  There  seems  to 
be  no  doubt  that  the 
pseudo-Hibernian  did 
reply  with  a  prophecy, 
and,  better  yet,  that  she 
made  it  her  business 
to  have  spoken  true. 
Seven  years,  according 
to  the  verses  in  ques- 
tion, did  Martha  serve  her  future  lord ;  and 
it  is  not  for  this  oracle,  on  whatever  com- 
putation, to  dispute  with  a  son  of  Apollo. 
There  she  shed  her  clever  childhood,  and 
took  her  degree  in  the  arts  of  womankind ; 
busy  with    pans   and  clothes-lines,  the   sea- 


Martha  Hilton. 


121 


wind  always  in  her  hair,  her  strategic  eye 
upon  master's  deciduous  charms,  and  per- 
haps, provisionally,  upon  master's  only  son, 
"  a  flower  too  early  faded  "  for  any  mortal 
plucking.  The  latter  was  not  fore-doomed, 
either,   to   be  a  stepson,      He  died;    and  in 


March  of  1760,  one  year  after,  a  moment  of 
historic  astonishment  befell  the  Reverend 
Arthur  Brown,  shared  by  the  painted  Straf- 
ford on  the  wall,  when  the  good  rector  of  St. 
John's,  having  dined  sumptuously  at  Little 
Harbor,  heard  his  host  proclaim  :  — 

"  This  is  my  birthday  ;  it  shall  likewise  be 
My  wedding-day,  and  you  shall  marry  me  !  " 


122  Martha  Hilton. 

(Ah,  no  ;  he  marrified  him,  did  that  Rever- 
end Arthur  Brown  from  the  north  of  Ireland, 
who  had  so  much  to  do,  first  and  last,  with 
the  matrimonial  oddities  of  the  Wentworths.) 
And  the  victress,  as  all  the  world  knows,  was 
"You  Pat,"  suddenly  found  standing  in  the 
fine  old  council-chamber,  appropriately  vested, 
and  radiant  with  her  twenty  years.  Abruptly 
were  they  joined,  these  wondrous  two,  and 
Hterally  "  across  the  walnuts  and  the  wine." 
And  now  Martha  had  her  chariot,  as  foretold, 
and  her  red  heels,  and  her  sweeping  bro- 
cades, and  a  cushion  towering  on  her  pow- 
dered head,  and  a  famous  beautiful  carven 
mantel,  on  which  to  lean  her  indolent  elbow. 
By  able  and  easy  generalship  is  she  here, 
with  him  of  a  race  of  rulers,  aged  sixty-five 
and  terrible  in  his  wrath,  for  her  gentle  or- 
derly, her  minion.  The  rustling  of  Love's 
wings  is  not  audible  in  the  Governor's  cor- 
ridors, perhaps  would  be  an  impertinence 
there,  like  any  blow-fly's ;  but  domestic  com- 
fort was  secured  upon  one  side,  and  power, 
swaggering  power,  upon  the  other, —  a  heady 


If 


"^  I 


Martha   Hilton.  125 

draught  of  it,  such  as  might  well  turn  a  novice 
giddy.  Tradition  saith  that  very  shortly  after 
her  elevation,  Martha  dropped  her  ring,  and 
summoned  one  of  her  recent  colleagues  to 
rescue  it  from  the  floor.  But  the  colleague, 
alas !  became  piteously  short-sighted,  and 
could  offer  no  help  worth  having,  until  my 
lady,  with  great  acumen,  dismissed  her,  and 
picked  it  up. 

For  a  full  decade  she  rolled  along,  behind 
outriders,  through  the  fair  provincial  roads, 
with  kerchiefed  children  bobbing  respect- 
fully at  every  corner.  The  strange,  stout, 
splenetic  being  to  whom  she  owed  her  me- 
ridian glory,  disgusted  with  events,  and  out 
of  office,  was  gathered  presently  to  his  fa- 
thers, and  left  all  his  property  in  her  hands. 
With  instant  despatch,  the  scene  shifts.  The 
Reverend  Arthur  Brown  beholds  the  siren  of 
Hilton  blood  again  before  him,  with  an  im- 
ported Wentworth  by  her  side :  one  red- 
coated  Michael  of  England,  who  had  been 
in  the  tragic  smoke  of  Culloden.  For  three 
years    now,    in    shady    Portsmouth,    he    has 


126  Martha  Hilton. 

been  striding  magnificently  up  and  down, 
and  fiddling  at  Stoodley's  far  into  the  morn- 
ing, for  pure  disinterested  enthusiasm  that 
the  dancing  might  not  flag ;  a  live  soldierly 
man,  full  of  bluster  and  laughter,  equal  to 
many  punches,  and  to  afternoon  gallops  be- 
tween the  hills  of  Boston  and  his  own  fire- 
side !  The  fortunate  widow  of  one  Georgian 
grandee  became  the  wife  of  this  other,  his 
namesake;  and  save  that  Colonel  Michael 
Wentworth  was  a  much  more  suave  and 
flexible  person,  besides  being  the  "great 
buck"  of  his  day,  there  was  small  diver- 
gence in  him  from  the  type  of  his  pre- 
decessor. Men  of  that  generation  fell  into 
a  monotony :  if  they  were  rural,  they  were 
given  to  hunting,  bousing,  and  swearing; 
the  trail  of  Squire  Western  is  over  them 
all.  Well  did  Martha,  tamer  of  lions,  know 
her  metier. 

Unto  this  twain  gloriously  reigning,  came 
Washington,  in  1789,  rowed  by  white-jacketed 
sailors  to  their  vine-hung,  hospitable  door. 
They  were  the  mighty  in  the  land ;   they  had 


'^'U^   <frx»~^  -Vc*^*^'^  /}  fsJo  c^-o^  ,  ■' 


Martha  Hilton.  129 

somehow  weathered  the  Revolution;  they 
were  peers  of — 

"  The  Pepperells,  the  Langdons,  and  the  Lears, 
The  Sparhawks,  the  Penhallows,  and  the  rest," 

with  their  stately  Devon  names ;  and  none 
could  more  fitly  honor  the  Father  of  the 
Country.  He  went  about  the  town,  indeed, 
in  a  visible  halo,  weaving  the  web  of  peace; 
and  his  smile  was  called  as  good  as  sunshine, 
and  his  Sunday  black  velvet  small-clothes 
elegant  in  the  extreme.  There  was  a  younger 
Martha  in  the  house,  curtseying  to  this  kind 
guest,  who  had  grown  up  to  play  the  spinet 
by  the  open  window  in  lilac-time,  and  who, 
later,  tautologically  bestowed  her  hand  on 
a  Wentworth,  and  passed  with  him  to  France. 
Her  father's  cherry  cheeks  paled  gradually, 
before  he  gave  up  his  high  living,  and  took 
to  a  bankrupt's  grave,  in  New  York,  in  1795. 
It  was  feared  that  he  checkmated  too  hard  a 
fate  by  suicide.  "  I  have  eaten  my  cake," 
he  said  at  the  end,  with  a  homely  brevity. 
What  was  in  his  mind,  no  chronicler  knoweth ; 


130  Martha  Hilton. 

but   it  is  not  unlawful  to  remember   that  in 
that  eaten  cake  Martha  Hilton  was  a  plum. 

Legends  such  as  hers  have  truth  and  rustic 
dignity,  and  they  tell  enough.  It  will  not  do 
to  be  too  curious,  to  thirst  for  all  that  can 
be  guessed  or  gleaned.  Let  Martha  herself 
remain  a  myth,  not  to  be  stared  at.  //  ne 
faut  pas  tout  corriger.  Breathe  it  not  to  the 
mellower  civilizations  that  a  myth  of  New 
England  can  have  a  daughter  only  forty 
years  dead  !  That,  after  all,  is  not  the  point, 
and  is  useful  to  recall  only  inasmuch  as  it 
assures  sceptics  that  the  myth  was,  in  its 
unregenerate  days,  a  fact.  It  rode  in  stage- 
chairs  which  performed  once  a  week  for 
thirteen-and-six;  it  held  babes  to  a  porphyry 
baptismal  font  stolen  by  heretics  from  Sene- 
gal ;  it  looked  upon  the  busy  wharves  now 
rotting  along  the  harbor-borders ;  it  pro- 
duced love-letters  on  lavender-scented  paper, 
and  with  an  individual  spelling  which  the 
brief  discipline  of  a  school  for  "  righters, 
reeders,  and  Latiners"  was  not  calculated  to 
blight.    Martha  must  have  done  these  things  ! 


rm/r-  *-rv/<r   frit^  f>vffVvvi 


^ 


fn^VVWK'A 


Martha  Hilton. 


133 


and  it  is  no  matter  at  all  if  they  be  sup- 
pressed. Gossip  concerns  itself  exclusively 
with  her  first  daring  nuptial  campaign,  an 
event  of  epic  significance,  and  in  the  practical 
manner  of  that  immortal  eighteenth  century. 
Is  it  so  long  ago  that  the  shouting  sailors  in 


,_.. '.€'^^^'^.-,^; 


pigtails  and  petticoats  lounged  under  the 
lindens,  along  the  flagged  lanes  of  Ports- 
mouth, fresh  from  the  gilded  quarter-galleries 
and  green  lamps  of  the  Spanish  ships?  It  is 
not  so  to  anybody  with  a  Chinese  love  of 
yesterday;  which  is  an  emotion  somewhat 
exotic,  it  is  to  be  feared,  on  our  soil.     Near 


134  Martha  Hilton. 

to  politics,  if  not  to  poetry,  are  the  patriot 
pre-revolutionary  mutterings  of  our  seaboard 
cities,  reaching  the  ears  of  the  surly  night- 
watch,  before  the  stocks  were  swept  away. 
And  it  was  in  that  immediate  past  of  effigy- 
burning,  and  tea-throwing,  and  social  panic, 
that 

"  Mistress  Stavers  in  her  furbelows" 

shook  her  fat  finger  at  the  little  figure  with 
the  swishing  bucket,  not  dreaming  how  it 
should  blend  with  what  we  have  of  dearest 
story  and  song.  The  life  back  of  our  democ- 
racy is  unsensational  enough.  The  saucy 
beauty  from  the  scullery  is  one  of  its  few 
dabs  of  odd  local  color,  and  therefore  to  be 
cherished.  She  is  part  forever  of  the  blue 
Piscataqua  water,  the  wildest  on  the  coast, 
and  of  the  happy  borough  which  shall  never 
be  again. 


NOTES 


NOTES 


'T  IS  hard,  methinks,  that  a  man  can- 
not publish  a  book  but  he  must  presently 
give  the  world  a  reason  for  it,  when  there 
is  not  one  book  of  twenty  that  will  bear  a 
reason. 

Sir  Roger  L'Estrange. 


O  I  do  now  offer  my  excuses,  and 
leave  a  generous  public  to  the 
decision  whether  this  book  may 
be  regarded  as  the  one  of  all  the 
twenty,  or  shall  be  counted  among 
the  unhappy  nineteen.  Very  many 
there  are  who  never  hear  a  story 
but  they  must  at  once  know  if  it 
be  true ;  and  if  it  be  but  partly 
true,  they  fain  u'ould  know  just 
how  much  is  fact  and  how  much  fancy.  It  is  to 
satisfy  such  curious  folk,  so  far  as  relates  to  three 


138  Notes. 

New  England  heroines,  that  these  true  histories 
have  been  written.  The  proverb  runs  that  "Truth 
is  stranger  than  fiction;  "  and  true  it  is  that  truth 
is  ofttimes  more  romantic,  and  does  httle  violence, 
withal,  to  our  delight  in  a  tale. 

He  who  reads  "  The  Courtship  of  Miles  Stand- 
ish,"  and,  later,  learns  something  of  the  true  lives 
of  its  characters,  must  confess  to  a  slight  shock  in 
the  discovery  that  the  scholarly  John  Alden,  of 
Longfellow's  lines,  was  but  a  cooper  at  Southamp- 
ton. Then,  too,  the  romance  that  surrounds  the 
martial  Miles  Standish  is  somewhat  dulled,  when 
one  reads  of  his  parley  with  the  Indians  and  of  his 
killing  of  some  of  them.  And  so,  though  we  must 
confess  that  the  tale  is  not  wholly  true,  we  may 
adopt  the  Italian  saying,  "  So  much  the  worse  for 
truth." 

Sharp  eyes  might  see,  even  were  it  not  here 
confessed,  that  Priscilla  alone  bears  not  the  dig- 
nity of  her  full  name  on  the  half-titles  of  this 
book.  Despite  the  eloquence  of  Juliet,  one  can- 
not feel  the  need  of  Mullins. 

Yet,  after  all  is  said,  we  cannot  love  the  poem 
less,  but  love  the  poet  more.  His  genius  the 
brighter  shines,  the  while  our  curiosity  is  satisfied. 


Notes. 


139 


Curiosity  is  a  quality  denied  to  few,  and  it  is  pleas- 
ant to   satisfy;  and  so  three   New  England  girls 
have     written     these 
three    true    histories, 
while    I,    the    artist, 
have  wandered  here 
and    there,    with    an 
eye   to    such   pictur- 
esque   bits    as    may 
have  escaped  calam- 
ity and  progress.     This  the  excuse  for  the  book, 
and  now  the  story  of  the  artist's  quest. 

First  to  Hopkinton,  from  Wm- 

;  ;-^  Chester,  by  bicycle,  —  a  way  which 

lay    by    the     "  Wayside     Inn." 

Nothing    is    more    disappointing 

than   such    a  search  for  oldtime 

scenes,  but  yet  it  is  a  joy,  for  one 

sees  so  much  that  is  delightful,  if 

not  closely  related  to  the  object 

of  the  quest.     The  road  wound 

always  to  new  beauties.    The  way 

led  by  old  houses  and  picturesque 

barns,  shaded  by  lofty  trees,  past  fertile  farms  and 

modern  dwellings,  bristling  with  gables  and  rising 


_TS^». 


I40 


Notes. 


among  green,  smooth-shaven  lawns.  A  season 
earher  I  had  spent  in  England ;  and  when  Weston 
was  reached,  with  its  quaint  stone  church,  the 
thought  arose    of  those   village   churches  of  Old 


England  with  their  ivy-covered   towers,  and,   all 
about,  God's  acre. 

But  here  no  manor-house  rose  proudly  above 
the  trees,  no  coat-of-arms  was  sculptured  over  the 
cottage  doors.     Indeed,  the  picturesque   cottages 


Notes. 


141 


themselves  were  missed,  and  in  their  stead  were 
the  plainest  of  dwellings  ;  but  upon  the  green  rose 
something  far  prouder  than  a  coat  of  arms,  the 


flag-staff,  and,  at  its  head,  the  flag  streaming  in 
the  breeze. 

This  is  the  one  distinctive  feature  of  the  typical 
New  England  village.  Always  upon  the  village 
green  is  seen  the  flag-staff,  although  the  town- 
pump  may  have  long  ago  gone,  and  the  band- 
stand not  yet  come. 


142 


Notes. 


:.'^, 


W 


The  ride  continued,  and  still  I  found  compari- 
sons between  Old  and  New  England,  but  not  to 

the  discredit  of  either. 

Now    are     more    old 

houses    sheltered     by 

great  elms ;  stone  walls, 

green  fringed ;   merry 

children  coming  from 

school ;  pastures,  with 

grazing  cattle  ;  and  so 

lies  the   way  through 

Wayland,  by  the  fields  and  rivers,  over  picturesque 

stone  bridges,  up  hill  and  down,  until  we  come 

to  Sudbury. 


Notes. 


143 


Sudbury  is  connected  with  our  Martha  Hilton, 
for  her  story  makes  one  of  the  "  Tales  of  the 
Wayside  Inn."     The  old  hostelry  does  not  look 


particularly  antique  now.  It  reminds  me  of 
what  a  friend  of  mine  once  said,  "  'Tis  wonderful 
what  one  can  do  with  a  little  putty  and  paint." 
There  are  some  who  would,  doubtless,  prefer  to 
see  the  old  inn  without  that  fresh  coat  of  yellow ; 
and  yet  all  will    commend  that  generous    public 


144 


Notes. 


^>i 


spirit  which  is  preserving  for  us  this  shrine  of  the 
muse.  And  it  may  be  that  it  will  longer  resist 
the  attacks  of  time,  protected  by  its  jacket  of  yel- 
low, than  it  would  be  able  to,  did  it  wear  Nature's 
soft  mantle  of  gray.  But  yet  the  place  is  one  of 
interest,  and  all  about  is  beautiful.  The  inn  has, 
at  least,  one  merit,  inasmuch  as  it  leaves  much  to 
be  imagined,  and  it  is 
well  worthy  of  a  visit. 

From  thence  to  Hop- 
kinton  is  a  matter  of  a 
dozen  miles,  the  last  four 
of  which  are  exceedingly 
rough  and  hilly.  At  Ash- 
land, it  is  said  that  it  is 
four  miles  to  Hopkinton, 
and  three  miles  back. 
From  this  it  may  be  in- 
-  ferred  that  the  village  is 
one  of  those  which,  "  set 
on  a  hill,  cannot  be  hid." 
Little  of  bygone  days  is 
left  for  the  sight  of  the 
pilgrim  to  this  village.  Here  is  a  noble  elm,  said 
to  measure  twenty-five  feet  in  circumference.     It 


f 


Ik 


■  /  >  ! 


:t 


'^- 


Notes.  147 

IS  said  to  have  been  brought  from  England,  and 
set  out  by  the  fair  hands  of  Madam  EUzabeth 
Price,  whose  husband,  then  rector  of  King's 
Chapel,  was  a  close  friend  of  Frankland.  It  was 
in  their  house  that  Agnes  Surriage  found  shelter 
while  she  and  Frankland  were  building  their 
home. 

The  Frankland  mansion  stood  upon  the  old 
highway,  now  a  country  road,  pleasant  and  shady, 
midway  between  Hopkinton  and  Ashland.  The 
old  mansion  was  destroyed  by  fire  in  1858,  and  in 
its  place  now  stands  a  modern  structure,  said, 
though  questionably,  to  bear  a  resemblance  to  the 
original  building.  A  bit  of  the  ancient  woodwork 
is  seen  in  a  shed,  at  the  rear ;  and  at  the  side  is  a 
beautiful  and  gigantic  flower  vase,  made  from  the 
upturned  stump  of  one  of  Frankland's  great  trees. 
This  is  the  tree  to  which  Dr.  Holmes  refers  in  his 
poem,  "Agnes,"  where  he  says, — 

"  Three  elms,  high  arching,  still  are  seen, 
And  one  lies  stretched  below." 

This  elm,  too,  is  said  to  have  had  a  girth  of 
twenty-five  feet.  Indeed,  this  is  the  legend  which 
attaches  to  all  of  the  ancient  trees  hereabout,  so 


148  Notes. 

that  I  concluded  that  it  was  a  figure  of  speech 
equivalent  to  the  forty-eleven  of  my  boyhood  and 
the  tre7ite-six  of  the  French.  The  fine,  noble  elms 
at  the  west  of  the  lawn,  said  by  Dr.  Chadwick  to 
have  been  planted  by  the  lovers,  cast  a  broad  cur- 
tain of  shade  over  the  drive  and  lawn.  Dr.  Nason,^ 
writing  in  1865,  records  the  circumference  of  the 
largest  two  of  these  as  twelve  feet  each,  but  doubt- 
less by  this  time  they  have  reached  the  conven- 
tional girth  of  twenty-five. 

Since  Dr.  Nason's  time  the  old  box  of  Sir  Har- 
ry's borders,  described  as  having  a  height  of  ten 
or  twelve  feet,  has  nearly  disappeared  except  a  few 
plants  remaining  before  the  house,  and  on  the  ter- 
races built  by  Sir  Harry's  slaves.  One  who  knew 
some  of  the  descendants  of  Agnes  and  Frankland 
well  says  that,  in  her  youthful  days,  the  young 
girls  were  wont  to  gather  this  box,  for  Christmas 
greens,  with  which  to  deck  the  old  church,  A 
bright,  sunny  day  will  serve  to  dispel  the  terrible 
ghost  of  Dr.  Nason's  early  days,  and  the  be- 
witched pump  no  longer  displays  its  weird  way- 

1  "  Sir  Charles  Henry  Frankland,  or  Boston  in  the  Colo- 
nial Times."  Elias  Nason,  M.  A.  Albany,  N.  Y. :  J. 
Munsell. 


Notes. 


151 


wardness,  but  yields,  instead,  a  cool,  refreshing 
draught. 

The  pilgrim  to  the  places  that  knew  Agnes 
would  naturally  first  visit  Marblehead,  her  birth- 
place ;  yet,  on  my  quest,  I  reached  it  last.  Others, 
in  a  similar  pilgrimage,  would  go  first  where  fancy 
or  opportunity  leads ;  and  this  is  the  true  spirit  of 
roaming.  So  next  to  Roxbury,  to  visit  Shirley 
Place.  The  reader  remembers  how  delightfully 
Mr.  Bynner  introduced 
Mrs.  Shirley  into  his  ro- 
mance, and  will  recall  his 
story  of  Agnes's  ride  there, 
in  the  collector's  coach. 
In  my  boyhood  days  in 
Roxbury,  the  old  mansion 
was  called  the  Eustis 
House,  and  it  stood  in  a 
great  field  given   over   to 

goats  and  burdocks.  There  are  those  living 
who  remember  it  when  Madam  Eustis  still  lived 
there.  This  grand  dame  wore  a  majestic  tur- 
ban; and  the  tradition  still  lingers  of  madam's 
pet  toad,  on  gala  days  decked  with  a  blue  ribbon. 
Now  the  old  house   is   sadly  dilapidated.     It   is 


152  Notes. 

shorn  of  its  piazzas,  the  sign  "To  Let"  hangs 
often  in  the  windows,  and  the  cupola  is  adorned 
with  well-filled  clothes-lines.  Partitions  have  cut 
the  house  into  tenements.  One  runs  right  through 
the  hall,  but  the  grand  old  staircase  and  the  smaller 
one  are  still  there,  and  the  marble  floor,  too,  in  the 
back  hall.  A  few  of  the  carved  balusters  are  miss- 
ing, carried  away  by  relic-hunters. 

"'Tis  a  great  city,"  said  Goody  Surriage,  as 
she  peered  at  Colonial  Boston,  over  the  shoulders 
of  Agnes  and  Mrs.  Shirley.  Now,  it  is  truly  a 
great  city,  wreathed  in  smoke  and  steam ;  and  all 
about  are  churches,  school-houses,  and  factories, 
while  the  "broomstick  train"  of  Dr.  Holmes' 
fancy  whirls  along,  close  by  the  ancient  mansion. 
The  engraving  is  from  a  sketch  made  many  years 
ago.  Since  then  the  old  house  has  been  entirely 
surrounded  by  modern  dwelling-houses.  The  pil- 
grim who  searches  for  it  will  leave  the  Mt.  Pleasant 
electric  car  at  Shirley  Street. 

In  Medford  is  a  house  often  visited  by  Sir  Harry 
and  Agnes,  known  as  the  Royall  House.  This 
house,  also,  to-day  shelters  more  than  a  single 
tenant.  Here  is  a  little  drawing  of  this  home  of 
hospitality,  which  was  forsaken   so  hastily  by  its 


%im      rv  ;- 


Notes. 


155 


fleeing  owner,  the  Colonel,  alarmed  by  the  too 
near  crack  of  the  guns  at  Lexington.  "A  Tory 
against  his  will;  it  was  the  frailty  of  his  blood, 
wore  than  the  fault  of  his  judgment."  The  elec- 
tric cars  from  Boston  to  Medford  pass  the  door  of 


the  old  mansion,  as  it  stands  near  the  corner  of 
Royall  Street.  Medford  has  a  picturesque  town 
square ;  and  it  is  only  a  pleasant  walk  to  the  Crad- 
dock  House,  built  in  1632,  now  converted  into  a 
museum,  and  thus,  after  many  vicissitudes,  rescued 
from  the  usual  fate  of  ancient  landmarks. 

And  now  to  Marblehead,  by  road  or  by  rail  as 


156 


Notes. 


one  chooses.  Perhaps  the  pleasantest  route  is 
from  Lynn  or  Salem  by  electric  car.  By  either 
route,  the  ride  is  a  pleasure,  and  although  little 
remains  to  tell  of  Agnes  in  her  girlhood,  there  is 
much  that  is  quaint  and  picturesque :  and  to  visit 


the  old  town  is  well  worth  one's  time.  Arrived  at 
Marblehead,  the  visitor  walking  down  the  main 
road  to  Orne  Street,  and  ascending  the  hill  to  the 
old  burying-ground,  will  see  by  the  wayside  the 
old  houses,  "  set  catty-cornered,"  as  the  quaint  old 
saying  is,  and  the  bright  gardens.  Now  upstairs 
and  now  down  run  the  streets,  and  likely  enough 


Notes. 


157 


the  visitor  will  meet  "  many  an  old  jMarbleheader," 
pictures  in  themselves. 

Just  where  the  road  turns  to  skirt  the  burying- 
ground  at  the  left,  is  Moll  Pitcher's  house.     Whit- 


tier  draws  the  portrait  of  our  New  England  witch 
in  one  of  his  poems,  handling  her  no  more  gently 
than  he  does  her  fellow-townsman,  old  Floyd  Ire- 
son.     This  house  is  the  home  of  her  youth ;  as  a 


158  Notes. 

witch,  she  flourished  in  Lynn.  I  have  often  heard 
stories  of  her  predictions,  and  one  of  my  cherished 
possessions  is  a  small  square  of  yellow  quilted  silk, 
which  once  formed  a  part  of  Moll's  brave  array. 

Across  the  way  stood  the  Fountain  Inn.  Here, 
upon  its  site,  and  overlooking  the  harbor,  are  two 
cottages,  in  front  of  which  is  the  well  of  the  old 
hostelry,  from  whence  Agnes  drew  the  draught  of 
water  which  she  offered  to  Sir  Harry.  This  foun- 
tain has  been  recently  brought  to  light,  and  still 
refreshes  the  traveller  as  of  yore.  Beneath  the 
apple-trees  which  shade  it  is  found  a  restful  seat, 
from  which  one  may  look  out  over  a  scene  of  singu- 
lar beauty.  As  often  as  one  looks  upon  this  scene, 
it  meets  the  eye  with  an  added  charm. 

We  little  realize  the  beauty  of  our  sea.  In  sum- 
mer time  it  is  ofttimes  as  blue  as  the  waters  of  the 
Mediterranean,  a  dark,  intense  blue,  broken  by 
purple  patches,  by  beautiful  streaks  of  emerald, 
dotted  with  warm,  glowing  rocks,  and  accentuated 
by  snowy,  foaming  breakers.  Below  the  hill,  to  the 
left,  are  some  fishermen's  huts,  surrounded  by  nets, 
drying  in  the  sunshine,  boats  ashore,  old  lobster- 
pots,  and  anchors,  all  in  picturesque  confusion, 
ready  to  be  sketched  and  painted. 


Notes. 


159 


Away  up  above  the  well  and  the  cottages,  is  the 
old  burying-ground,  with  restful  benches  here  as 
well.  Here,  one  can  look  across  the  little  harbor 
to  old  Fort'sewall,  and  here,  just  at  the  base  of 
the  fort,  so  says  Mr.  Bynner,  is  the  probable  site 
of  the  home  of  Agnes  Surriage. 


•l^-v'^^^^^l 


^PilliSi^ 


A  walk  to  the  old  fort  is  full  of  interest.  Many 
shady  spots  are  there,  in  which  to  rest,  and  watch 
the  waves  breaking  on  the  rocks  below.  From 
this  point  it  is  but  a  step  to  the  terminus  of  the 
electric  cars,  at  the  foot  of  Circle  Street.  In  this 
street,  upon  the  right,  is  old  Floyd  Ireson's  house, 
dark  and  weather-beaten.  But  the  tourist  is  ad- 
vised not  to  ask  too  many  questions  concerning 


i6o  Notes. 

him,  of  the  old  Marbleheaders ;  for  it  is  a  tender 
point  with  them,  and  it  is  whispered  that  Mr. 
Whittier's  ballad  is  more  fraught  with  fancy  than 
with  fact. 

From  this  point,  it  is  interesting  to  walk  up  the 
hill,  following  the  windings  and  turnings  of  the 
street.  Let  the  traveller  not  fail  to  look  into  the 
queer  old  back-yards,  and  at  the  gardens,  filled 
with  old-fashioned  flowers,  gorgeous  m  their  splen- 
dor, nor  to  turn  and  view  the  prospect  toward  the 
town.  The  quaint  streets  here  are  filled  with  old 
and  picturesque  houses.  Some  are  fine  examples 
of  colonial  architecture,  and  some  are  interesting 
as  the  birthplaces  of  eminent  men.  These  places 
should  be  preserved  and  marked  with  appropriate 
tablets. 

Now  cross  over  to  the  hill  on  which  sits  the 
Abbott  memorial.  Here  are  many  stately  old 
houses,  well  worth  the  attention  of  the  sight-seer. 
The  electric  cars  or  the  steam  railway  are  near  at 
hand,  on  the  other  side  of  the  hill,  and  to  return 
to  Boston  by  way  of  Salem  is  a  pretty  ride. 

So  much  for  Agnes  and  Marblehead.  Her 
stately  house  at  the  North  End  in  Boston,  from 
the  windows  of  which  she  watched   the  battle  of 


Notes.  163 

Bunker  Hill,  has  long  since  gone ;  but  Copp's  Hill 
burying-ground,  the  Old  North  Church,  Paul  Re- 
vere's  house,  and  many  other  old  houses  are  still 
there. 

And  now,  of  Martha  Hilton.  Portsmouth  was 
her  home  and  the  scene  of  her  brilliant  matrimo- 
nial campaign.  This  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
of  our  New  England  towns.  Aldrich's  "  An  Old 
Town  by  the  Sea  "  should  be  read  by  the  pilgrim 
on  his  way.  No  one  loves  the  old  town  more,  or 
knows  it  better  than  he.  Much  remains,  here,  to 
tell  of  Martha  Hilton,  but  a  day  well  suffices  to 
see  it  all.  A  short  walk  from  the  railway-station 
is  a  pleasant,  old-fashioned  market  square.  At 
times  it  is  filled  with  wagons  of  hay  and  loads  of 
wood,  while,  all  about,  is  a  subdued  bustle.  From 
this  square  leads  Pleasant  Street,  well  named,  and, 
only  a  few  steps  away,  it  is  crossed  by  State  Street, 
once  Queen  Street,  at  the  foot  of  which  once 
stood  Stavers'  Inn,  the  "  Earl  of  Halifax."  It  was 
in  the  doorway  of  this  inn  that  Mistress  Stavers 
**fied"  Martha  Hilton  circa  anno  Domini  1754. 
No  print  or  picture  of  this  old  inn  is  known  to  ex- 
ist. Beyond  State  Street  is  Court  Street,  with  in- 
teresting  old    houses,    and    some  of  the   ancient 


164  Notes. 

flagging  here  and  there.  On  the  cross  streets  is 
more  of  this,  with  sometimes  a  gutter  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  street.  All  of  this  portion  of  the  town  is 
interesting,  dirty,  primitive,  and  full  of  memories. 
Parallel  with  Pleasant  Street  are  Washington  and 
Water  streets,  from  which,  at  right  angles,  run  a 
dozen  lanes,  not  a  whit  altered  since  Martha's 
time.  Here  is  where  the  sailors  in  pig-tails  and 
petticoats  used  to  gather.  At  the  corner  of  Water 
and  Gardiner  streets,  let  the  visitor  notice  the  great 
golden  linden,  overshadowing  a  house  as  old  and 
as  lovely  as  the  tree  itself. 

The  neighborhood  is  full  of  old  houses,  with  hip 
roofs  and  gables.  The  Point  of  Graves,  a  stone's 
throw  away,  is  sadly  neglected.  Children  some- 
times play  on  a  large,  flat  tombstone,  and  curiosity- 
seekers  skip  from  one  headstone  to  another,  in 
search  of  the  oldest  date.  The  old  stones  are 
sculptured  with  grim  skulls  and  cross-bones,  or 
with  humorous  cherubs.  One  thinks  of  the  days 
Tom  Bailey  spent  here,  when  he  was  a  blighted 
being.  Let  us  hope  that  it  was  a  more  secluded 
spot  then  than  now. 

Close  by  is  Manning  Place,  very  short,  and  at 
the  corner  is  the  square,  strong  house,  built  prior 


Notes.  167 

to  1670,  where  Benny  Wentworth  and  his  sires 
were  born.  A  grand  place  this  once  was,  with 
its  lawn  extending  to  Puddle  Dock.  Once  this 
was  a  fair  inlet,  but  now  no  one  will  dispute  the 
rightfulness  of  its  name. 

From  this  point  it  is  a  pleasant  walk  to  the  old 
Wentworth  mansion,  where  Martha  came,  slaved 
and  conquered,  even  receiving  as  her  guest  the 
Father  of  his  country.  Skirt  around  the  Point  of 
Graves,  and  follow  along  the  water  side,  by  the 
Gardiner  House  and  its  big  linden,  over  the  bridge, 
and  past  the  Proprietors'  burying-ground ;  every- 
where it  is  picturesque.  From  thence  let  the 
traveller  follow  the  left  fork  of  the  road  in  full 
view  of  the  river  for  a  portion  of  the  way,  and 
thence  pass  through  pine  groves  and  between  great 
bowlders,  until,  with  a  sudden  descent,  a  fair  pros- 
pect seaward  bursts  upon  the  vision.  At  one's 
feet,  toward  the  left,  is  the  old  house,  "  malformed 
and  delightful."  I  well  remember  when  it  was 
venerable  in  appearance  and  in  its  rooms  were  to 
be  seen  the  old  spinet,  the  Strafford  portrait,  and 
many  other  things  so  delightful  to  the  antiquary. 
But,  alas  !  it  now  is  "  spick-span  "  in  yellow  and 
white  paint,  and  set  back  in  a  well-groomed  lawn. 


i68 


Notes. 


The  visitor  will,  of  course,  wish  to  see  St.  John's. 
It    has  an  interesting    interior.     Here   is   the  old 


t 

il 


Kv^  y\^^ . 


ttt-- 


w 


n:Oi>:AJ 


plate,  the  "Vinegar"  Bible,  and  other  quaint  and 
curious  things.  The  steeple  is  modern.  All  about 
are   fine   old   houses   and   great   spreading  trees. 


Notes. 


171 


Stoodley's,  too,  one  will  wish  to  see,  where  the  gal- 
lant captain  "  fiddled  far  into  the  morning."  It 
is  the  brick  building,  marked  "  Custom  House," 
and  it  stands  at  the  corner  of  Daniel  and  Penhal- 
low  streets. 


These  are  the  principal  points  of  interest  con- 
nected with  the  life  of  Martha  Hilton,  but  Ports- 
mouth old  and  quaint  affords  much  more  to  which 
the  eye  of  the  lover  of  the  antique  will  surely 
turn. 


172  Notes. 

Every  one  visits  Plymouth,  the  home  of  Priscilla. 
There  is  Httle  need  to  dwell  upon  this  place  here. 
A  Plymouth  pilgrimage,  if  by  sea,  is  easy  and 
pleasant.  Of  guide-books  there  is  no  lack,  and  all 
that  remains  of  the  Puritan  maiden's  time  is  read- 


ily found.  Even  Plymouth  Rock  is  carefully  en- 
closed ;  and  rightly,  too,  else  it  would  long  since 
have  been  carried  away  in  fragments.  On  the 
hill  is  the  old  burying-ground,  from  which  fine 
views  may  be  had  of  the  old  town  and  of  the  har- 
bor where  the  "Mayflower"  lay  at  anchor,  the 
sweeping  coast  here  low  in  sandy  dunes,  now  high  in 


Notes.  175 

bolder  bluffs.  The  electric  car  is  here  also,  which 
takes  one  the  length  of  the  town  and  far  beyond, 
passing  the  Memorial  Hall,  where  are  so  many 
relics  of  old  colony  days.  Plymouth,  indeed,  is 
easily  to  be  seen.  It  is  the  Mecca,  to-day,  of  many 
pilgrims.  What  has  been  done  for  Plymouth,  I 
have  tried  to  do  for  the  other  old  towns  into  whose 
histories  are  woven  the  lives  of  our  heroines.  Many 
of  these  old  houses  will  soon  have  passed  away. 
Many  have  disappeared  within  a  few  years  past. 
Let  us  hope,  however,  that  the  little  now  left  to  us 
will  long  remain,  and  especially  may  we  hope  will 
be  preserved  all  that  serves  to  remind  us  of  these 
Three  Heroines  of  New  England  Romance. 


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